Amsterdam & Keukenhof, Netherlands
April 14th – 15th, 2007

I had been contemplating whether or not to go to Amsterdam this weekend. I actually really wanted to visit Keukenhof gardens near Amsterdam. I have wanted to go there for at least 10 years, but the problem is that the park is only open for 8 weeks in the spring each year and it had been impossible to time my vacations around that (and that I did not think of going there when I was in the US). Now that I am living only 3 hrs away from Keukenhof and Amsterdam it really is so tempting to go visit it. However, (I never thought that I would say this) the truth is that I have been traveling so much in the last few weeks that I really would like to spend one weekend at home. (By the way, home is Köln at the moment). So on Friday a couple of friends and I decided that we would go just to Keukenhof or the day on Sunday. Anyways that was not meant to be. My friends really wanted to go to Amsterdam as well, so we ended up renting a car on Saturday afternoon at 12:30pm.

I don’t take too many impromptu trips.. especially not to another country. I should have figured this would not be that great an idea. We booked the car, the hotel, got directions to get to the hotel in Amsterdam online. Picked up the car, and tried to get out of the city in Köln, but lost our way. Of course in a hurry, we forgot to get our map. Not that it would have helped much as street signs are not too easily identifiable. We took several wrong turns and asked a few people for the right way. The last couple we asked for directions to “A3”, the interstate that takes us to Amsterdam, they told us we ought to actually follow A4 and that is a better route. So that’s what we did. Not a good idea! We did not have a road atlas and had no idea after A4 what road to take. In any case, a long story short, it took us 6.5 hrs to get to our hotel. (Had we gotten the directions right, it would have taken 2.5 hrs.) So we checked in close to 7pm. The hotel was listed online as being 4km from the city center. Wrong! It was probably 14km from city center and was actually an airport hotel. In any case, we found a tram line close by that took us to the city. We walked around a lot. My first impression was that of amazement. Not at the city itself but at the number of tourists. I learned later that the actual population of Amsterdam is approx. 7.3 Million, but on any given day, the average number of tourists is 15.4 Million. No wonder. I saw plenty of great restaurants and bars all bursting with people. We walked in the sex district (Photo 1:in the sex district) and I was amazed that people brought along their young (read 7ys) kids too there. We got bored quite soon and walked later to find a place to eat. We found a Mexican restaurant which advertised a decent priced menu, but when we sat down it was actually a lot more expensive. So we just had a drink there. By then I was tired. and just went back to my hotel. I must say the hotel was really nice. A 4 star no less. I almost forgot what that is like, having stayed at hostels with most of my travels in the last 4 months. Needless to say, I had a great nights sleep. (Photo 1: Abby and I, in Amsterdam)

The next morning, we headed off to Keukenhof. This time we had all the directions printed out. We got there without any problems. I was simply dazzled by the tulip fields.. rows and rows of gorgeous blooming tulips. (Photo 2: At a tulip field near Keukenhof garden). It was really incredible. We spent about 4 hrs in Keukenhof Gardens. The weather couldn’t have been better. It was 27°C and sunny. I took plenty of pictures. Around 4:30 pm we finally headed off home. This time it took us only 3hrs to get from Keukenhof to home. In all, the day spent at Keukenhof was worth all the trouble and hassle we initially had with our trip.

Keukenhof: A photographer's delight (even for amateurs)

Fuzzy tip tulip