It all started with a great plan for two-day trip to Leiden, Hague, Delft, Rotterdam, Gouda and Utrecht. Fortunately we decided to slit it into half and on Saturday we left Amsterdam Zuid in pursuit of adventure in Leiden and Hague (as we never reached Delft:()
By we, I mean myself and crazy Southern Americans - that is Uruguayan and Chilean. Surprisingly, not Spanish was the language spoken the most on the trip but... French:) So as you can imagine I was rather quite that day:P Anyway I had to concentrate on my other roles that were a tour guide, photographer and time keeper as you cannot leave this task to southern culture people:P
I think I should mention that we met at 8am on Saturday. Imagine, that I have to wake up earlier than on a week day!!!
Leiden before 9am on Sat is soooooo empty. As this is a student city, I can imagine that students sleep after parties! Lucky them:P Good thing that we did not had to queue to any attraction. Maybe because we did not really want to see anything. We were just walking and talking. I liked it more than Haarlem. And we passed a lovely market! So many delicious things and three expats slobbering over!!! Nice city with a citadelle, the oldest university in the Netherlands (I've just remembered that I have a friend there!!! I completely forgot about that). We could not stay longer as all of us were looking forward to taste the most delicious apple pie in Holland - in a cafe called Dudok in Hague. I must admit it is delicious!!!! And pretty big piece. And do not take hot chocolate with it as it would exhaust the sugar limit for this year. We could barely walk after it. We dragged ourselves to the Marithuis - the museum with famous Girl with a pearl earing paining. And the Anatomy lesson of doctor Tulp. It reminded me of one Polish lesson in high school. I am not going in to details to avoid embarrassment but "nieboszczka" is a key here:P
Anyway, nice place, as we got the audio phones for free. Actually the security guy told only me about that;) After Marithuis we headed to Escher Museum. M.C. Escher is the word famous graphic artist. You might not recall the name, but I am sure that you know some of his work. He plays with architecture, perspective and impossible spaces!
That was a lot of fun but we had to follow the tight schedule. Next step was the Peace Palace – it looks exactly the same as L’hote de ville in Lille or any other northern France cities:) Nice memories revived. Many international judicial institutions are located there e.g. International Court of Justice. On our way to the Peace Palace we met two Chinese students from Groningen so our group enlarged:) We also stopped at Panorama museum to see the famous work of Hendrik Willem Mesdag - a sea village which is a cylindrical painting,14m high and120m long!!! Impressive. With all the arrangements you feel like you were at the seaside!
Next step of our great tip was Madurodam – a museum the highlights of the Netherlands on a scale 1:25. So I could take a pics of myselft with a Dam Palace or photograph airplanes:) My new hobby now. I wish I could shoot them just after taking off or before landing!!! Well, I think I had a chance when I was working at the airport:P
Madurodam was lots of fun. If you have no time for sightseeing Netherlands – just come here and you have all in once place! Worth mentioning – the map and a guide is also in Polish:) Unfortunately I lost it as it was soooooo windy that when I wanted to rotate the page it blew it off.
We went even more nuts and... we went to the seaside! I have never ever experience such a wind with a combination of omnipresent sand! It was one fo the time I was lucky I wear glasses:) I had to hold the balustrade otherwise the wind would blow me off as the guidebook. Guys had fun trying to fly and fight with the gravity:P Scheveningen seems like a very nice place to come during the summer time (probably it is also very crowded – the guidebook said that 10m tourists visit it every year and I suppose not many of them are as crazy as we were and visit it during winter:P). There is a nice promenade (jetty) with a restaurant at the end. There must be a nice view from there to the beach. We never reached more than 5m behind the stairs:P
As it was getting late and it was already dark we decided to skip Delft and take earlier train home. Beside that Ale’s ticket was pickpocketed. We were lucky enough to buy one way only. I need to mention our problems with buying the ticket!!! I mean the problem was me, as this trip was complicated in terms of number of cities and different stations that we start and finish the trip. I did not know how to put it in the system and, as return ticket is not really much cheaper, we did not bother to buy it. Very nice Dutch tried to explain us how to do it, but it was Friday afternoon and my brain was already in the evening, not thinking stage:P
Thank you guys for this nice trip! I hope that in two weeks we would continue our Tour the Netherlands:) myself – the guide and photographer, Ale – the Chief and Seb – our Wikipedia and GPS and entertainer:P Of course everybody who likes challenges is welcome:)
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