It is flower season in the Netherlands! This weekend we packed up the car, complete with our bikes and headed to Keukenhof. On this visit we skipped the garden itself and instead paid the €6 to park the car and ride our bikes from there. There are plenty of other places to park your car …
Holland’s Flower Parade Float Viewing
Can you ever get enough of Holland’s Spring Flowers? We certainly don’t think so! My original plan was to drag the whole family out for the Bulbflower Parade. I knew I would love seeing the floats made up of Holland’s flowers and thought the kids might enjoy the festivities as well. The parade passes through …
Keukenhof Gardens: Seeing Holland’s Flowers
Its spring in the Netherlands which means Tulips and flowers galore! The most “traditional” way to see the flowers is a visit to Keukenhof Gardens in Lisse. If your here to see flower photos from our mid April 2016 visit you can check them out here. Keukenhof gardens are only open for two months each …

A Weekend in Brugge
Brugge is filled with canals, cobblestone streets and 17th century houses. If I didn’t know better I would have thought I was still in the Netherlands. Although Brugge is reachable by train, we decided to head by car and explore some of the surrounding areas as well. We stopped briefly in Bergen Op Zoom for …
Day Trip to Haarlem
Haarlem is an adorable, approachable town northwest of Amsterdam. It is easily reachable by train, particularly if your visit is centered in Amsterdam. We drove from Delft to provide some additional flexibility. (As in most Dutch towns there are several well marked paid parking garages.) We arrived in Haarlem before most things had opened. The …

Breda Farm & Playground
Wolfslaar in Breda was the perfect place for the kids to enjoy some outside time. This free playground, park and farm has plenty to offer for the whole family. The water playground, fairly typical of Dutch playgrounds, is always a big hit with our kids. This one had different tracks you can send the water …

Wuppertal Railway & Zoo
Topping off H’s 2016 Travel Wish List was the “upside down railroad” from his Big Book of Trains. Turns out the Wuppertal Suspension Railway is driving distance from our house and was on the way to some work related travel Jeff had scheduled. Our first stop in Wuppertal though was the Wuppertal Zoo. Parking is …

Prison Escape!
Imagine a three-hour trip into the world of prison. Then try to escape, if you dare! Prison Escape is a game (think escape room, but legit) where you willingly report to a now-retired prison in Rotterdam to be locked up. To keep things fun for everyone, I cannot tell you many details, but here is what …
Slot Loevestein
Slot Loevestein has everything required for a wonderful outing with the littles. Like many of the great finds in the Netherlands it is part of the Museumkaart program, making it free to cardholders. Slot Loevestein is a medieval castle build in the late 1300’s as part of the Hollandic waterline defense system of the Netherlands. The …

Sleeping at Kasteel Terworm
At the beginning of 2016 while Jeff and I were making our “travel wish lists” we asked our three-year-old to list a few things he would like to do over the next year. The top of his list was to sleep in a real castle. As luck would have it the boys and I were …