#family vacation

Family vacation photo

(Allan Grant. 1950)

Cowgirls with comics

(Allan Grant. 1950)

[Destin, FL] Miramar Beach

Day 8:

The last day of my European Family Vacation ended on quite a lovely positive note, as we trekked to Gouda, Den Haag, and a few other short stops.

First, we made our way from Amsterdam to Gouda, one of the best cities of the trip. Known for delicacies like their Gouda cheese and stroopwafels, this city was vibrant, historic, and incredibly charming. We made our way around the marketplace in the center of town, where we sampled some awesome cheeses and foods like kibbeling, little chunks of fried cod with a delicious tartar sauce. We also stumbled upon a few bakeries and bought ourselves some fresh cookies and breads to munch on for lunch. The stroopwafels are probably my highlight. If you’ve never had a stroopwafel before, here’s what it is. It’s two thin crunchy waffle cookies with a caramel-like sauce sandwiched in between them to make a delectable treat. They make them fresh in Gouda, which is also where they were first created. How cool, right? These treats can be found in the United States at specialty stores and on United Airline flights in the morning!

Anyway, we stocked up on our treats and made our way around the countrysides of the Netherlands, where we were treated to spectacular views of the tulip fields. We roamed around and stopped whenever we got a chance to take a look around, before we then made our way to Den Haag. Den Haag is kind of like the administrative capital of the Netherlands, even though Amsterdam is technically the capital. You’ll find the Supreme Court, lots of Dutch embassies, and United Nations offices here as well. A city of over 1 million people, the Netherlands’ third largest city had a lot to offer. Sadly, we were only able to spend about a couple of hours here, but it was a really cool place. We snagged some quick bite to eat at a fast-casual Asian restaurant (which somehow ended up being one of the better quick meals we had). 

And then we made our way to the Kinderdijk windmills, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the largest concentration of historic windmills in the country. We wanted to head here by sunset to capture some photos and enjoy the views, and it certainly did not disappoint. The golden hour with the setting sun made for a beautiful evening, strolling around the windmill grounds and soaking it all in. It made for a nice final night in Europe, before we headed to the AirBnB for the night. 

Day 6 

Zaanse Schans Windmills

Amsterdam

Utrecht

We started out the morning incredibly early at around 5am to catch the sunrise and beat the annoying tour buses full of people at the Zaanse Schans windmills. Strolling around through the cool damp maritime air in mostly solitude, we watched as the caretakers of the windmills put up the cloth sails up so that the blades could catch the wind. 

Eventually, we strolled into some of the nearby gift shops, including one shop that specializes in making wooden shoes, or Klompen. I never really realized how Dutch wooden shoes really were, but it was cool seeing videos of how they take a piece of solid wood and dry them out and eventually shape and smooth them to make shoes. 

After walking through a few more stores, we made our way to Amsterdam. We parked our car on a side street, and we ended up paying 5 euros an hour to keep our car there. Really must emphasize that you should probably take public transit into Amsterdam because parking sucks and getting in and out of town is difficult with all the traffic. 

We strolled through the streets for hours and hours, stopping at a food truck area to grab some lunch. We got an assortment of smoked chicken, smoked sausage, and a few other side dishes to hold us over. After frolicking around, we made our way to several sites around town, including a big outdoor farmers market that sold everything from produce and snacks to clothes and souvenirs. Most European cities have these types of markets, I’ve noticed, which is something I wish we had more of in cities in the U.S. 

Eventually, we made our way over bridges and by the famous canals that make up this city. 

As we wound down the day, we made our way to the city of Utrecht for dinner, where we dined on some decent Thai food. It was a nice change of pace and was actually quite good!

So this post seems a little disjointed and a little less passionate. We had some major disagreements on this day, my brother and I. You have to expect some family bickering on a family vacation, am I right? So unfortunately, I didn’t get as much out of this day as I would have hoped. But, don’t worry, there’s still one more day to have fun :)

Day 6: Amersfoort & Keukenhof Gardens (Lisse, Netherlands)

We left our AirBnB in Dinslaken and made our way to the Netherlands. We were scheduled to check into our next place after 2PM, so we decided to stop in the city of Amersfoort, just outside of Amsterdam. Amersfoort was founded over 750 years ago, which makes cities in the U.S. seem so young…! The city has a system of canals and a gate called the Koppelpoort, which is a medieval gate that was built around the 15th century. 

It was a bright sunny day, but it was really chilly with a brisk wind. The whole family was bundled up as we strolled the streets. Amersfoort was one of those places that we didn’t put on our itinerary, but it was a great place to stumble upon. The city was fairly empty, and we even joked that it felt like a ghost town. We stopped in one of the town squares that was surrounded by plenty of cafes and restaurants with chairs and tables everywhere. But there was no one in the square. It felt like a ghost town… Maybe it was too early or too cold for people to go out?

We spent a few hours walking around and then made our way to the town of Houten, where there were these rainbow houses my brother really wanted to photograph. It was a nice little area, with river homes that were red, yellow, blue and green. We then made our way to our lake house AirBnB, where we relaxed for a bit and then found some food and snacks to hold us over until dinner. We stopped at this place called Snackbar Van Dijk and split a shoarmaro, which in this case was an eggroll that was filled with curried shawarma meat. I’m not sure what kind of meat was in this thing, maybe lamb or beef? But it was really good! My parents stopped at a grocery store and got some baguettes and deli meats for a sandwich. I shared in some of that and ate a pasta salad thing as well as we made our way to Lisse and the Keukenhof Tulip Gardens. 

We timed our arrival to Keukenhof to be in the late afternoon because the crowds start dwindling pretty quickly, giving us more of the garden to ourselves :) 

When stepped foot through the entrance, I knew that this place was crazy special. My mom, who loves flowers, was in her own happy world. She was taking pictures left and right and just in awe and even overwhelmed by the beauty. My brother and I made our way around the garden, taking as many cool shots of tulips and other flowers as we could. There are many ways to take pictures of tulips… I mean.. a lot. And when you’re presented with probably thousands of different tulip species, you kind of just go crazy trying to take so many pictures. We took a few family photos at Keukenhof, including our annual Phan Family Christmas photos. Since all four of us aren’t in the same place for Christmas, we have to be strategic and plan our Christmas photos well ahead of the holiday to ensure we have an updated photo! 

After spending about 4 hours at Keukenhof and taking advantage of the soft light, we headed back towards our AirBnB. We decided to got a Dutch restaurant that our host suggested to us, and this ended up being one of the best meals of the entire trip. The restaurant was called Bar-Bistro ‘t Bruggetje, and it’s a hit with the locals in the Amsterdam Lake District. We looked at the menu, but it was all in Dutch. We tried to figure out what we wanted, but it was impossible. Our waitress gave us the WiFi password so we could translate the menu into English, and so we then ordered our food. In addition to two Amstel beers, we also ordered Sate van Varkenshaas (Pork with Peanut Sauce), Gebakken Zalm (Fried Salmon), and a Mushroom Tartelette, served with some potatoes, salad, and fries on the side. Everything was soooo good. Like, wow. maybe it was because we were all starving, but everything was delicious. And being that this place was a local spot, it felt really authentic and like we were part of the local community. 

After dinner, we made our way back to our lodging and got some zzz’s. 

When in Rome.. 

I have to secretly take this photo because taking pictures are not allowed in some areas, but I can’t resist the beauty of this ceiling. 

(Inside The Bassilica, Roma, Italia)

Men in uniform. *wink* ;)

Where would you go? :)

Off to Hogwarts we go.

Family Vacation Photo Bomb