The Netherlands

Springtime 2022 and it’s finally time for a new solo adventure abroad. By April most restrictions in Europe had been lifted and travelling between European countries could be done with minimal “paperwork” and no restrictions. So my first solo adventure abroad in 2,5 years went to the Netherlands. A country I hadn’t visited before.

I left work early on a Wednesday, just after easter, and made my way to the train station with my huge suitcase and carry on. It’s been a while since I’ve had to do that and it’s not a part I miss. But this was a trip where I planned on doing some shopping so I needed the big suitcase. I arrived in Leiden, a town south of Amsterdam, after 8 pm and needed some food. I went for a little walk, but quickly decided against sitting down at a restaurant, there weren’t many options close to the hotel anyway. So I grabbed something from a supermarket and headed back to my room after snapping a few photos.

For my first full day in the Netherlands I had plans starting early in the morning. I left my hotel at 6:15 am and went “the long way” towards the bus station while taking photos. I was taking the bus to Lisse to visit Keukenhof, a big flower garden with loads of tulips. I had made sure to plan this trip for April because of the tulips, and was lucky enough to see some tulips fields from the plane on my way into the Netherlands and from the train to Leiden. Now it was time to get a closer look at some of these beautiful flowers. I walked from the bus stop to Keukenhof, tried to find a few geocaches on the way, but I couldn’t find any of them. I arrived at Keukenhof just after opening, at 8 am. I wandered around the park taking loads of photos in the morning light. The park is beautiful and is filled with loads of flowers, not just tulips. There were also blooming trees, a small lake, lovely little paths and just so much to take in. There were ducks around the park, some didn’t mind people too much. Obviously I wish I had the park to myself, so that there would be no people in the way or in any of my photos, and so I’d have felt more comfortable taking out my tripod and taking photos of me with the flowers. I did not have the park to myself though, there were quite a lot of people there. I did still take out the tripod for some photos though, and yes, people did stare a bit. I also had strangers take a few photos for me, just as I helped them get photos of themselves. The one criticism I have about the park was the fact that there didn’t seem to be a place to get any actual food until 11, and judging from the long lines at the coffee kiosks I was not the only one who had thought I’d find something to eat here in the morning. I ended up getting a slice of cake and an iced tea just to get some nutrition in me, other than the cereal bar thing I had for “breakfast”.

When I left the park I walked a little, I was hoping to find a tulip field I could walk onto without causing any damage, but I didn’t see any fields that I could walk onto. So I ended up geocaching a little, and by that I mean I went for a nice walk where I looked for three geocaches, but only found one. Lisse is quite nice though, with the little rivers and ducks everywhere so it was still a good walk.

Before I left for The Netherlands I sort of thought I wouldn’t see a lot of wildlife, but I was definitely wrong. There are so many different kinds of ducks and they’re everywhere in The Netherlands. When I got back to Leiden I found a geocache on my way to an area where, according to google maps, I would find some restaurants. And luckily google did not steer me wrong. I sat down outside by the river and ordered a very needed toastie, and a cider. By the time I sat down for this “lunch” it was nearly 3 pm, and I’d walked more than 15 000 steps. I was pretty tired and it was lovely sitting outside in the sun enjoying a meal. After the meal I headed back to my hotel room to get a little rest before any more exploring. I looked through my photos and posted some to Instagram, then had a little nap before I headed out again for some geocaching and exploring.

With all the canals that this country have I’m sure one could spend days exploring any town in The Netherlands, but I only had a few hours here and there, and I saw beautiful things every time I went exploring. After an hour of exploring Leiden I figured I needed dinner, so I sat down at a restaurant for some food, it honestly wasn’t great, but it was fine and I really needed to eat a proper meal. I went towards the sun after the meal to try to get some cool photos of the sunset before I went to bed. And I did get a few I'm really happy with. I went to bed a before 10 pm, however, I couldn’t sleep because someone was having a full on party next door and it sounded like the music was right outside my window. I was hoping they’d stop the music and go out or something, but when they were still at it at 1:30 am I got so desperate I called the hotel reception. Yes, I was that person. But it was a Thursday night, I was getting up super early and I was so incredibly tired, now also with a headache. They said it was a private resident, but they’d check on it. 5 minutes later it was quiet and after another 20 minutes or so I was finally sleeping.

I was up and out the door a little past 6 am. My plan was to walk towards a train station on the other side of town and to see the sun come up on the way. It was a lovely morning, I saw ducklings and got some great photos in the early morning light. Then I took the train to Alphen aan den Rijn. I was going to visit a zoo specialising in birds, but first I had to walk a few kilometers to get there. I chose to walk along the river and tried to find some geocaches but it seems a lot of the Dutch geocaches are hard to find. What I did find along the way was lovely blooming trees and a few birds, including some cormorants. I arrived at the park, Avifauna, as they were opening at 9 am. The first cool animals I saw were a couple of ostriches, one of them seemed to want my attention. But as I was looking at it, and the ducks who had decided to crash the party, I heard a noise I’ve only ever heard in an animation movie before. The movie was spot on about the sounds storks make. At the top of some poles along the road into the park there were stork nests, and they were only the first ones I saw.

Throughout the day I would find storks and heron everywhere, and they were so used to people that they didn’t seem too bothered by me. One of the nests was right next to the path and almost at ground level. It was pretty amazing. And to be sure I asked the girl in the gift shop and she confirmed that these birds were free. They choose to come back to the park every spring. I have to admit that I didn’t like all the enclosures in this park, some were small and not very inviting, but for all kinds of wild birds to choose to come back every year I guess they are doing some things right. I suspect the pelicans are free too, because I saw one of them flying, and there were ducks and cormorants all around the park, especially around the small lake, who I also believe chose to be there. But there weren’t only birds in this park, there were a few other cool animals too. Like lemurs and monkeys. These animals have bigger outdoor areas where the visitors can walk amongst the animals. It’s pretty cool to have lemurs running around you and not really mind that you’re there. I believe both the lemurs and the monkeys also had the possibility of going inside if they wanted to, but they seemed pretty happy to be out in the nice spring weather.

There was also one type of bird you could get close to; at the enclosure Lori Landing you could buy a cup of nectar before going in to see the birds.

The first time I went in I had my camera ready when I walked in and did get some photos, but the lens got a bit fogged up. I still asked someone to try to take a few photos for me though, because I had like six birds on me at the same time. One bird actually decided to sit on the camera as I was handing it over. Because of the fog on the lens I decided to go back in a little later. This time I was armed with my phone and got a few selfies with the birds. One thing I liked about the park, other than the open areas where you’d walk amongst the animals, was that they had feedings of some of the animals, making it easier to see them and get closer to them, however the presentation was done in Dutch and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one who didn’t understand a word of it. I left the park a little after 1 pm and knew I had a few hours of travelling ahead of me. First I walked the 30-ish minutes to the train station, then got the train to Leiden. I went to the hotel and got my bags, which the hotel had been nice enough to carry down the stairs for me. I walked back to Leiden train station and got a train towards Amsterdam, then got off the train before Amsterdam central and switched to a tram that would take me right to the door of my next hotel. The stairs at this hotel were even worse than the one in Leiden, and getting the suitcase and my carry on up to the reception was bad enough, but then I had to keep going up steep and winding stairs to get to my room too. When I finally got there I quickly showered before a little bit of rest. I didn’t have too much time for that though as I’d booked a booze cruise on this Friday night. So after a little rest I got myself ready and went to a restaurant not too far away for dinner. I’m noticing I’m getting more comfortable going into restaurants alone now, I won’t go to restaurants that seem fancy, but I did go to restaurants this time around, not just bar type places that serves food. (Also because there seems to be less of those in The Netherlands than in the UK, which is where a lot of my solo adventures have taken place.) I didn’t have too much time for dinner, so I was a little worried but I got my food quite quickly and had just enough time to finish my cider before I needed to go in order to make it to the central station via tram in time for my booze cruise.

The booze cruise was supposed to leave at 8:30 pm and I was told to be there 15 minutes before, so I made sure I was. But the boat didn’t budge until about 8:45. When I arrived at the docks I saw a bunch of guys but no girls. I started talking to one of the guys and found out they were there for a stag do (bachelor party). I felt a little strange “crashing” their party, but luckily a group of British girls showed up after a few minutes, so I was not alone. The cruise itself was fine, but I don’t feel like it’s a must do in Amsterdam. Although being on a boat in the canals is pretty cool and I got a few nice photos from the water. The cruise was supposed to be a drink as much as you want for 90 minutes type of cruise, but with more than a handfull of people drinking white wine they ran out of that after about 60 minutes. Not ideal. After the boat ride we were taken to a club where we’d get free entry. Unfortunately the other girls that had been on the boat with me wanted to go somewhere else without really giving this club a chance, and since I didn’t even know where they were going I didn’t feel right about following them. The club had good music and pretty good, but not cheap, drinks. There weren’t really enough people there though and having to pay every time you need the bathroom at a bar where you’re paying more than €10 for cocktails seems a bit strange to me.

The next day I slept in a bit, I had stayed at the club a bit later than I should have. When I finally left the hotel I decided to just walk around, I tried to find a few geocaches but didn’t have much luck. So I just wandered until I was so hungry I had to sit down to eat somewhere. I ended up sitting down outside at a restaurant close to the central station. And I got the weirdest club sandwich I’ve ever gotten. This was the type of place where they had photos of the food, and I could see from the photo that there was tomato on the sandwich and asked for it without tomato. What I didn’t notice in the picture was the egg. I have never seen a club sandwich with eggs before. Luckily there was a piece of bread between the eggs and the chicken, so I could just eat the top tier. After the meal I walked through the shopping street, I wasn’t in a big shopping mood though and couldn’t handle Primark, I did go into New Yorker though and found a few things I liked. I also went into a shoe shop that carries a lot of the brands I like, some of which you can’t find in Norway. So after a little bit of shopping for clothes and shoes I headed back towards my hotel. I stopped by Victorias Secret on the way too, but was a bit disappointed by the selection.

When I got back to my room it was time to get ready for the evening. I’d booked a bar crawl for my second night in Amsterdam. I got ready and took the tram back to the city centre where I’d found what seemed like an okay restaurant online. Actually, I had two options next to each other, after walking by them I decided on the Argentinian grill option. Which I was quite happy with, I got a nice Chicken skewer and a beer.

Then it was time to find the start bar for the crawl. And when I did I got a bit of a shock. There was a long line just to get registered for the crawl, and that was just the beginning of my disappointment over this crawl. I will go into more detail when I put this crawl into the list over crawls I’ve done. But in short; my experience with the Red light district crawl was chaotic at best. I did end up finding a couple of girls to chat with and spend the night crawling with, but not until leaving the first bar. Trying to talk to people in the first bar was not easy, it was just too loud. And there was no effort from the organisers to get the crawlers connected to one another. The bars we went to were fine, but none were great in my book. And the crawl ended at the same club as the night before, but this time there were to many people there and the music wasn’t to my taste on the Saturday. (I’m a pop girl, not too fond of “dance” music because I don’t consider it music you can actually dance to.) As always I end up staying out a little longer than I should, even when I’m not too fond of the bar. So I didn’t leave my room too early on the Sunday either, and I had a bit of a travel distance to go for my goal for the day; a place called the world of windmills. I absolutely should have gone in the morning, but I didn’t, so there were quite a few people there. It was still pretty cool though. A picturesque little area with several windmills, some farm animals and huge clogs placed outside a “wooden shoe workshop”. I got help from some other tourists to get some photos of myself in the clogs and made sure to offer my help to some as well. I’m trying to be better at offering my help as I know it sucks to ask, but sometimes you really do want to get a few photos of yourself without having to take out a tripod. And in a place like this, where you’re almost queuing to get your photo in, it’s not really possible to set up a tripod. If I had been here earlier and there weren’t as many people I might have stayed longer, but that wasn’t the case, so I made my way back to the train after about an hour. My next stop for the day was a small shopping street in Zaandam with some cool and unique architecture. I took some photos of the cool buildings before going into Primark. I probably should have gone to Primark in the city though, I was quite disappointed by the selection and only ended up getting underwear.

When I got back to Amsterdam I headed towards Hard Rock Café in the hopes I would feel okay going in to get a table by myself. When I’ve gone to Hard Rock alone before I’ve just gotten a drink at the bar or so, but I was hungry and needed to go to Hard Rock to “earn” a souvenir glass. I wish they didn’t react quite the way they did when I asked for a table for one, it almost sounded like the lady felt sad for me or something. But she found me a window table, and at some point I noticed there was a guy eating by himself not far away, so it’s not like they don’t see people come in alone. The chicken burger I got tasted fantastic. I hadn’t eaten a proper meal all day. I hadn’t really been too hungry before this and had been fine with a protein bar thing, but it had gone a little too long by this point, so the meal was really tasty. After the meal I got a souvenir glass from the Rock shop and then went back to my hotel room to start packing.

I went back out for an evening walk after a few hours, and actually found a few geocaches along the way. I also found a rather unique shop, a shop full of rubber ducks. And you know you’re on holiday when you justify buying rubber ducks for €25, even if that was the price for 3. After the shop it was getting dark and I had to be up ridiculously early so I made my way back to the hotel. I packed as much as I could and went to bed to get a few hours of sleep. I got up at 3 am the next morning and got the bus to the airport and arrived at the airport just before 5 am, and barely made it to the gate before boarding at 6:30 am. The “line” (utter chaos) to security was the longest I’ve ever encountered before. So a piece of advice: Never ever think you need to be there less than 2 hours before your flight when travelling from Schiphol airport. I had just over 2 hours and it wasn’t really enough. Looking back at this I guess what I experienced at Schipol was just the start of the problems they were about to have and I'm lucky I didn't travel at a busier time. So, what have I learned from this trip? For one, don’t book back to back boozy things. I regret booking both the booze cruise and the bar crawl. But then I didn’t really like them as much as I had hoped I would either. Had I not gone out partying, but rather just had one or two cocktails at a bar instead I would have gotten a lot more out of the days. I also learned that it's not easy to find quick ready meals in the shops in the Netherlands, so it's not as easy to just grab something to take back to the room, which is a bit annoying when travelling alone. You don't really need to sit down at a restaurant or such for every meal when you're alone. I do want to go back to The Netherlands again though, there are a lot of places I’d like to see, however, I’m not entirely sure I’ll do Amsterdam again. But if I do I’ll go for a morning walk rather than staying out late. April is definitely a good time to visit the country so who knows, maybe I’ll do The Netherlands again in April next year. Or maybe I’ll go somewhere else next spring. Either way; the tulips, the blooming trees and the slightly warmer weather than Norway means it’s a great spring trip for people living a little further north.