Holland (part 3) Windmills and Wooden Shoes

After our morning in the Keukenhof Gardens, we made our way over to the town of Zaanse Schans which has a lovely collection of historic windmills and houses and shops.

The weather cleared up and we got to enjoy beautiful blue skies and sunshine.

We really enjoyed our time in the wooden shoe shop. We got to watch and learn as they showed us how they carved the wooden shoes by hand and then by machine. There were rows and rows of wooden shoes  of all different sizes and designs.

There was also a cheese shop, sweet shop, restaurants, and other knick knacks to buy.

The next day on our way home to Germany, we made a short stop at Floriade. It's a large outdoor garden and earth preservation show. There we saw different inventive ways to use energy and lots of flowers. There were also some street performers, fresh fruits and veggies to sample and an African music show.

Then we headed back on the road again back to Germany for the night. We got a magnificent view of the most vivid rainbow we had ever seen!

Part 1 - North Sea

Part 2 - Keukenhof Flower Garden

Holland (part 2) Keukenhof Flower Garden

The main reason for our trip to Holland was to go to the Keukenhof Gardens and see the tulips - and for me to photograph them. And it didn't disappoint. I've never in my life seen such a beautiful amount of flowers. Thousands and thousands  and hundreds of thousands of flowers sprawling through a maze of walkways and waterways. It was such a glorious garden, and at times a bit overwhelming.

I narrowed my photos down a lot for this post but it's still very photo heavy. I tried to give a variety of flowers so you could feel like you saw the gardens too. 

Of course the day we went, we got rained on. But the flowers were happy and the raindrops made for interesting closeups. 

There were ducks wandering between the people and baby ducks swimming in the fountains. See a pic of one of the cute baby ducks here.. 

It wasn't just tulips either. There were all kinds of flowering trees and lots of brightly colored flowers blooming everywhere.

There were pink tulips, red tulips, strange mixed colored tulips. Rainbow rows of tulips. Probably every tulip that ever grows.

There were flowers so dark they almost appeared black and little hearts hanging low to the ground. 

Everyone was ducked under umbrellas, but that didn't slow them down. People just kept pouring in the see the world famous "Spring Garden".

There was even a little petting zoo with pigs, goats, chickens, cows, and sheep. Ariana was determined to try to pet a chicken but they were too fast for her. She made fast friends with the pigs and the goats though.

After spending a morning in the wet gardens we were heading out to spend the afternoon in a nearby windmill town (that post will be tomorrow). As we were leaving the Keukenhof Gardens, we passed this beautiful red field of tulips and we had to pull over to take pictures. 

These weren't part of the Keukenhof, so we aren't sure who they belonged to but they made it clear they didn't want people traipsing through their tulips.

Ariana played photographer and snapped this picture of us. Pretty good, don't you think? I can't believe I let her hold my camera, even for that minute!

We spotted a rouge yellow tulip blooming in a sea of red.

It was a wonderful morning and if you made it through this post, thanks! I know it was VERY photo heavy but hopefully you enjoyed them and felt like you had a mini visit to the Keukenhof!

Part 3, the old windmill town and wooden shoe shop will be up tomorrow.

Part 1 - Holland's North Sea

Holland (part 1) North Sea

The weekend of April 20th we took a little trip to Holland to see the tulips in bloom. I'm breaking up this trip into a couple posts so its not so overwhelming. (Because I took over a THOUSAND photos. Yea.) 

Today, I'm going to share my photos of the North Sea. We stayed in The Hague, Holland. Unfortunately, we didn't see much of the actually city but we enjoyed the Boulevard, eating seafood dinner, collecting shells, and watching the sun go down over the water.

The beach was a lot nicer than we thought it would be. We were picturing rocky shores in our head. It was so nice, we stayed literally across the street from the beach, a 5 minute walk at most. Ariana of course wanted to touch the freezing cold water.

Windy hair shadows in the sand.

Loved these striped shells, we found them all over and collected them for future crafts.

It was a cold beach trip. Can you tell how cold she is?

She found a razor clam shell and that's what we had for dinner too!

There were lots of interesting statues and art.

These fish were stamp into everything. These were in the sidewalk. 

Ariana enjoyed playing on a seaside playground we found, and it made me giggle when she wanted to pose by this surfer guy with his abs. 

Then we found this cool light house. Check out the awesome door shot I got here.

We enjoyed our seafood dinner on the Boulevard as we watched the sun sink lower in the sky and then afterwards we walked along the beach and enjoyed the sunset. 

 The golden sunset was so beautiful. We defiantly want to try to take a trip back to explore more of the city.

 I'll also be posting photos from our trip to Keukenhof Gardens-were we saw all the tulips, and also our trip to the old windmill town!