The Netherlands

The last stop on our trip: Two nights in The Hague, three nights in Amsterdam, and the last night at an Amsterdam airport hotel. Our flight at 12 noon on Friday from Bilbao to Amsterdam was in KLM business class, using miles. For flights within Europe, most airlines, including KLM, use the same 3×3 seating in the first few rows as the rest of the plane, but the middle seat is blocked. The seats are smaller than first class seats in the US, but at least you will never have someone seated right next to you. So, while the seats were so-so, we were served champagne and a surprisingly tasty lunch of cauliflower with cashews and a very interesting Indian spice, along with a terrific desert. Plus, KLM flight attendants are very attentive.

The one travel snafu we had on the trip occurred shortly after landing at Schiphol Airport. The train station is located conveniently at the airport, just after exiting baggage claim. We had planned to take a 30-minute nonstop train to The Hague, where our hotel was a 5-minute walk from the central train station. We easily purchased our OV-chipkaarts loaded with €20 at a kiosk (yea for English language options on the first screen), then headed to Platform 5 for the train labeled on the departure board as “Den Haag Centraal”. The train arrived, and we got on it. Then only a few minutes later, the train started slowing down and stopped at a town called Hoofddorp. Everyone had to exit the train. As became apparent soon, all Dutch people speak excellent English, so we were able to ask the train conductor what was happening. She explained that due to an accident, the train was not going to The Hague. They apparently had announced this over a loudspeaker (in Dutch) at the train platform, but we obviously did not understand it. She suggested we wait 15 minutes for a train to Leiden, where we could then catch a bus to The Hague. We did that and took the train to Leiden. A helpful person at the information booth at the station in Leiden explained where we board the bus to The Hague. We did that, but we then learned from a nice Dutch passenger that the bus was going to a different train station in The Hague, not the central station. As a result, we had to take another bus from Mariahoeve station to Den Haag Centraal.

In summary, instead of a direct 30-minute train, it took us 3 transfers and four hours to get from Schiphol Airport to Den Haag Centraal! (To the train company NS: If a train is not going to Den Haag Centraal, do not label the train on the departure boards as destination Den Haag Centraal!) Once there, our fun continued, trying to find our nearby hotel. Google Maps could not figure out where we were or what direction we were walking, so the five-minute walk to the hotel took 30 minutes. We had to cancel our reservation for dinner that evening in the nearby town of Delft, as we could not make it there in time. But we had a wonderful meal at a craft beer place right by the Dutch parliament buildings overlooking a square packed with restaurants and people. Not so bad!

The weather we experienced in the Netherlands was cooler than in Spain and Portugal, and windier. A few days before we left, we had been expecting rain all weekend, but we caught a break. The forecast changed to clear skies. We had a nice sunny day on Saturday to see the tulips at Keukenhof Gardens, even though you still needed a jacket. The gardens were amazing—tulips of every color as far as you can see in every direction, but also mobs of people. We had a clue about the crowds as we saw several hundred tour buses in the parking lots as our bus pulled in.

Things were a lot more expensive here than in Spain or Portugal. Public transportation was very efficient (other than the train lines to The Hauge being out of service!), but the cost was about ten times more than it was in Basque Country. We rented a car three different times on our trip, but not here. In part because it was the peak of tulip season, hotels were very expensive. We snagged a relative bargain rate at the Hilton Amsterdam with an advance booking, but that was still nearly double what we had paid for hotels elsewhere. While a little bit away from the center of town, it was just a few minutes’ walk to a bus stop or tram stop that would take you anywhere quickly.

Unlike most of our other locations that were very hilly, with lots of stairs everywhere, the Netherlands was flat. That was a welcome relief to Cindy who spent a lot of the trip trying to recover from her knee issues and avoiding hills and stairs if possible. Bicycles were everywhere. We saw many people in their 80s and 90s riding bikes. A school was next to our hotel in Amsterdam. Just like in America, lots of parents were dropping off their kids in the morning. While a few of the drop offs came from cars, most of the parents took their kids to school on their bikes, typically with a big carriage in front with an extra wheel that can hold two or three kids plus groceries (we joked that those were the minivan of bicycles). I estimate there were 3 to 4 times as many bikes on the roads as there were cars, along with separate bike lines and occasionally bike-only roads and bridges, separate traffic lights for bikes, etc.

The food was very good, but perhaps less interesting, and a bit more expensive, than in Spain and Portugal. We had some fun local dishes such as stamppot and an Indonesian rice table (unfortunately, as Cindy found out at 3am, Indonesian food is cooked with corn starch). The breakfast at all three hotels we stayed at in the Netherlands was super as well (including fun little pancakes, and desserts for breakfast!)

The highlight of our stay here was seeing all the Vermeer paintings. We saw the Girl with a Pearl Earring at the Mauritshuis in The Hague on Sunday morning, an easy walk from our hotel. We went to the Vermeer exhibit at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (twice). The museum had gathered 27 of his total 37 paintings from museums all over the world. We had read that the exhibit had completely sold out, hours after tickets went on sale. But as I was reading further on the museum website, “Friends of the Museum” can get into any exhibit, at any time. On the FAQ page, it confirmed that included the Vermeer Exhibit. So, on February 15, a month before we left on our trip, we became Friends for one year. We learned that about a week later, the museum discontinued selling new Friends memberships. We first saw the exhibit on a Monday afternoon. It was terrific, but it was jam packed with people. Cindy had a great idea. We arrived at the 9am museum opening on Wednesday. As Friends, we bypassed the line of all the people with the timed tickets and were the first ones in. We pretty much had the space to ourselves.

On the morning of April 20, 33 days after leaving the US, we boarded our flight for home. We had a great trip!