Reyes Family Time: Europe Trip - Part 3 (The Netherlands)

The final part of our trip was 5 days staying at a campground outside of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. This is a campground my dad discovered several years ago, and it is in an amazing location right on the water and near some adorable small towns. My entire family was there and we stayed in cabins at the campground. It was such a fun time - all the great things about camping (grilling, smores, picnic tables, outdoor games) with the benefits of sleeping indoors on a bed at night. The kids were extremely excited because they got to sleep in bunk beds during the trip. It was Mathias' first experience sleeping in a real bed (he still sleeps in a crib at home), and although he desperately wanted to sleep on the top bunk, he settled for sleeping on the bottom bunk instead of in his pack and play.

On our first day in the Netherlands we went to small town called Marken and took a ferry to Vollendam. These towns all have rows of houses crowded together, with beautiful window boxes and window displays. There are marinas scattered throughout these towns, with boats moored and water taxis ferrying people back and forth. The weather was cold and rainy when we were there, but we stopped in various shops, browsed through a cheese factory, picked up some souvenirs, and of course had some amazing meals. We had some wonderful fish soup, and I discovered one of my new favorite foods - bitterballen. Bitterballen are scoops of a thick meat gravy that are breaded and fried; they are about the size of meatballs and are delicious. I ate more than my fair share during our time in the Netherlands, and we even bought some frozen and took them back to Germany to cook.

The next day we drove nearby to a working windmill town. It was amazing - they said there used to be more than 900 windmills in the area, and while not all of them remain, there were still a fair amount of windmills doing work in this town. We saw windmills that ground spices, cut wood, mixed oil, etc. The kids were so excited to see the windmills and we even got to go into a windmill and see the inner workings of the wheels and cogs underneath.

After the windmill town, we drove to a nearby town called Edam. (If you've ever had Edamer cheese, it originated in this town in the Netherlands.) We wandered through the town, took pictures, walked through some cheese stores and sampled different cheeses; Mario and I even bought a wheel of cheese to bring back with us. That night, we went to an amazing restaurant in an old schoolhouse. My dad said it was only 4km by bike (since there are bike trails everywhere, all along the dikes) but by car, it was closer to 20 km.

The following day, the kids stayed at the campground with my parents while my siblings and I and all of our spouses took the bus into Amsterdam. It was a great experience - Amsterdam is a fascinating city, made even more so by the abundance of bikes everywhere. There are dedicated bike lanes all over the city, and on any given block there are bikes everywhere, chained to bridge railings and stair railings. At the bus/train station, there were bike parking garages with hundreds of bikes in huge rows. We tried to go to the Anne Frank house/museum, but there were no tickets available so we settled for looking from the outside. We also walked around, saw some churches and had breakfast at a quaint coffee shop.

All in all, our trip to the Netherlands was fantastic. I loved the tiny little towns with the houses all squished together, and spending time with my family and playing games was a lot of fun.

Here are some pictures from our time in the Netherlands: