Bikes, Dikes, Wooden Shoes and Windmills

A tribute to my roots! We definitely think Holland is worth a return trip.   Amsterdam is nice, but we left a lot of stuff in rural Holland un-seen, including the homeland of my mother's side in the far North...




First, there are a lot of bikes in Amsterdam. A lot of bikes.

Travelling with kids tip: If going to Amsterdam, find the Pancake Boat tour.  When the boat launches, an unlimited buffet of pancakes and a wide variety of fixin' opens. Great thing for a cold rainy day, which it was.   Oh and added bonus: Pancakes cooked with strips of bacon in them. Mind. Blown.

The Anne Frank house tour - no pictures allowed inside, unfortunately.   A commemorative statue outside Westerkerk, just down the corner from the Anne Frank House.

The house blends in to the neighborhood. In fact, we were just lounging by a street level door waiting for the tour and saw the placard.

Waiting outside of the Anne Frank House for the tour.

The Rijksmuseum, home of Rembrandt and his contemporaries.  Another travelling with kids tip: Make museums a scavenger hunt, give them postcards or pictures of the famous works and and have them find them all.  The Rijksmuseum does it even better, they hand out a scavenger hunt with a page for every room in the museum. Great way to keep the kids engaged.  Here, they respond to some questions about Delft Blue in the background....a common sight in my house growing up ;).

The Grand Finale, Rembrandt's Night Watch. I'm the last person to give a critical review of art, but as a layman Rembrandt s use of salient light is incredible - it almost looks as if stage lights from around the room are lighting up portions of the painting like a stage.

Outside Amsterdam is where real Holland is....here in the seaside town of Marken, for example, some of the locals are seen in traditional dutch clothing replete with wooden shoes.

On a dike!  The island town of Marken is a bowl, a dike rings the entire island holding back the seawater.   A strange feeling for sure.

Volendam....sometimes the dikes are well disguised. Here, the dike makes up the boardwalk for a shopping area.

Chase finds an appropriate souvenir.

But what about the windmills, you ask?  Zaanse Schans for sure delivered on some spectacular windmill sights....to be continued.