In Holland, we chose a Holiday Inn to stay at, in the town of Leiden. We chose this hotel as it was close to most of the towns we wanted to visit and right off the highway. We would recommend this hotel. Over the internet we got decent room prices and the room was spacious for a family of 5, though one of our children slept in Grandma and Grandpa�s room each night. The hotel also had an indoor pool, though we rarely had time to use it. Breakfast wasn�t included in our room rates, but you can easily find a good Dutch bakery and McDonald�s was just down the road! Also, if you want to pay the high price, their dinner buffet is good and easy after a long day.
As far as things to do and see: We visited the Netherlands �Openluchtmuseum� (open-air museum), in the town of Arnhem. We really enjoyed this and could have spent more time there. As the name implies, this is a huge park, with houses, stores, windmills, etc., depicting Dutch life the �way it used to be�. There are lots of hands-on activities for children. We would recommend spending a day here, but be sure to get there early, as the park closes at 5pm. Close to Arnhem, we visited a small town where Nathan�s grandfather was born and another nearby town that he lived in until coming to the US at the age of 4.
We spent a day in the town of Delft, where they make the famous blue and white Delftware. There we toured a Delftware factory, which was established in 1653. We all enjoyed the factory (the women enjoyed the gift shop). Afterwards, we spent the rest of the day in the town of Delft, touring some old churches and taking a horse-drawn carriage ride thru the town. Delft is a pretty town to visit.
The town of Aalsmeer holds the world�s largest flower auction each day. We arrived one day around 10:30, but the auction was already over. So, if you go, plan on arriving much earlier than we did! We were still able to walk on the elevated walkways and see tons of flowers and the auction rooms. Our information sheet said that they auction over 21 million flowers and plants each day, so this is quite a sight to see! Also that day, we visited an area called Zaanse Schans, where we were able to tour working dye and oil mills (windmills), a wooden shoe factory, a cheese factory and more. The engineers will enjoy the working windmills here.
We spent one day at Efteling, which is an amusement park. Unfortunately, this was the only day we got rained on! We personally wouldn�t recommend going here, especially if you have been, or are going to Disneyland Paris. We would save the money and spend it at Disneyland instead. Erica enjoyed Efteling though, as she got to ride a double-loop roller coaster!
We spent one day in Amsterdam, which wasn�t enough time at all. We toured the Anne Frank House, which is very interesting and sad, at the same time. We also took a boat ride on the canal.
Our last day in Holland we went to Alkmaar for the cheese market. The market is only done on Fridays and the town was quite busy because of it. Once we made our way through the crowds, we enjoyed seeing the hundreds of yellow, wax-covered rolls of Edam and Gouda cheese. The cheese is moved from a central line onto �sleighs�, after which two men literally run each sleigh into the weighhouse and then back to a wagon. It is interesting for awhile anyway. Our last stop before leaving Holland that day was at Kinderdijk, an area known for its 19 windmills, all built in the 1700s. Since it was getting late, we took a boat ride on the canal, which went past most of these windmills.
We had more things on our agenda for Holland, but we ran out of time. We would definitely recommend going here and spending a week. We did not go when the bulb fields were in bloom, but that would be the ideal time to visit this country.
