The World is a Book

The beaches in the Netherlands run up the entire coastline pretty much. Similar to Belgium and Northern France, they are wide swept beaches with sand dunes and parkland. The tides are pretty big so sometimes the water is a long walk out. Still the wide beaches are nice and offer a lot of room to play on.

The dunes near our beach area in the Hague are large parkland with bike paths, walking paths and horse trails. We have foxes, rabbits and even 2 shaggy cows and their calves wandering around. That gives you quite a turn when you see these on the loose actually and we were kind of nervous to walk past them running freely (they have enormous horns).

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We enjoyed Leiden so much that we took Grandma and older brother Ben back on Wednesday. Market days are Wednesday and Saturday but the weekend one is the biggest and also has an antiques market which is nice. Crowds are higher and it is fuller on Saturday but there are more stalls for sure. Just depends what you want.
We also found plenty of boat trips from small one family style to larger groups in covered boats. Most last 1 to 1.5 hours. The smaller boat drivers are open to bartering with taking children for free etc.

One of the things we did enjoy in Brussels was chocolate. We hit multiple chocolate shops and bought little bags of Belgian chocolates of all fillings. I considered it research of course. Our favorite turned out to be Galler (pricey) and Leonidas (same taste but very reasonable). By the end of the day I think we had consumed a kilo each!

The food choices were also more interesting than in Holland. We had a good fixed price meal similar to Paris for 12 euros a person. The Littles and I had raw oysters with main course of 2 types of fish and lamb. Then later for dinner we were tired and had a great and cheap meal from a Greek place near the Grand Place.

The food is reported to equal Paris. We did not find this but perhaps we were in the wrong areas as we only hit tourist spots.

Anyway we are in support of the guidebooks in suggesting only visiting Brussels on your way to Brugge or other places. I remember it from childhood so it was interesting to go back but I wouldn’t bother going as a regular tourist spot. If you do then plan on one day tops.

Footnote to this. We were shopping in the covered gallery mall in The Hague later on and ran across a little Leonidas chocolate shop! Prices are the same and quality just as good. Phew we can renew our stock!

We headed out to Brussels this last weekend because we wanted to explore some places we used to live when I was a child and mom was at SHAPE teaching for the British Forces Schools. We got cheap weekend tickets to Brussels as there are Benelux specials going on right now – 50% off from Friday to Sunday. Our tickets were only about 36 euros for adults and 5 euros for the children round trip.

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The Littles and I headed out to Leiden today because we had read an older blog post here by Marta when she lived in The Netherlands and she described the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, the National Museum of Antiquities.: http://www.rmo.nl/english/

This is one of the top ten Egyptian museums and has lots of mummies and artifacts which made Max excited. There were very few people in the museum and it was a relaxing walk around for a few hours. There were great children’s interactive pieces and a nice bookstore and café. Children were free and I only paid 9 euros so a great deal.

Continue reading "Leiden" »