We kicked it into high gear during the month of May. The day after I got home from my Mother's Day weekend trip with Laurel, Brian, Ellie and I headed back to Belgium for a few days in beautiful Bruges before continuing on to the Netherlands for the last half of the week. It must be the time of year because we fondly remember Bruges as one of our favorite places so far. I think it had a lot to do with our rental apartment as we discovered during that week that lodging can have a big effect on how great (or not-so-great) a trip can be.
We arrived in Bruges and had no trouble finding our rental within the old city walls. It was in a fantastic location, the perfect size and very quiet. I couldn't get over our view overlooking one of the canals!
Our first morning in Bruges was overcast and a little chilly...
... so what better way to warm up in a city so well-known for its chocolate than a huge mug of the stuff?
Seriously, it was the best hot chocolate ever. They brought big mugs of hot milk with an assortment of chocolates to stir into the milk, served in an edible chocolate cup! Heaven. Ellie finished her entire mug in record time and then nibbled whatever chocolate scraps she could find. It's completely genetic, as I found myself doing the same thing.
Having sufficiently warmed up and with some sunshine peeking through the clouds, we decided a canal tour was in order. It had some great history on Bruges and was a very efficient way to see a lot of the city in a short amount of time.
Swans everywhere!
Speaking of swans, we saw this adorable little family cruising down the canal in front of our apartment.
The market square.
Bruges' famous belfry tower.
Gorgeous market flowers.
Feeling adventurous, we rented bikes one afternoon for a ride out to Damme and around Bruges. It was my favorite part of our time there despite the slight awkwardness of biking at five months pregnant.
I also found this old abandoned house that I made us all stop near and park the bikes because I had to get a picture of Ellie in front of the old door.
More biking pics.
We biked a portion of the perimeter of old Bruges with the four remaining windmills in view.
We did have a few rough patches with Ellie including one evening meltdown which sent her to bed early and me to dinner by myself, but all-in-all she was a pretty good traveler on this trip.
We really enjoyed our time in Bruges and reluctantly left, although we were looking forward to seeing the famous tulips up in Holland that we had heard so much about!
We stayed in the seaside village of Zandvoort but our rental apartment left much to be desired. I think it had a lot to do with the fact that it was a little too lived-in and not as clean as we would have liked. The bedrooms were also on the second floor, with Ellie's room around the landing from us with a huge, steep staircase that I swore she was going to fall down if she got up in the middle of the night and tried to find us (she never gets out of bed at night!). Every time I heard her stir in the night I immediately woke right up to make sure she wasn't going to try and find us and naturally fall down the stairs. None of us slept all that well, and Ellie was up bright and early by 6:30 the next morning.
Since we were already up early, we got to Keukenhof Gardens just as they opened!
We were there during the last week of the their tulip festival and as a result most of the tulips had already been cut. We also missed those famous fields with huge blocks of colored tulips, but I still got some good photos.
Snacking on a Dutch Stroopwafel.
Still fascinated with fountains!
After Keukenhof, we drove to the adjoining towns to Edam and Volendam to check out the sights and the Markermeer.
Later that evening, a car picnic with a view of the North Sea!
Since we were only about 45 minutes away from Amsterdam by train, we spent the majority of our last day there -- when you hear that Amsterdam has a lot of bikes (reportedly over 600,000 in the city), it's no joke!
The bicycle parking deck right outside the central station chock full of them!
Canal cruises are very popular in Amsterdam so we took advantage.
We heartily embraced the "when in Rome" attitude and rented bikes as a way to see as much of Amsterdam as we could. This ended up being a much better idea in theory than it turned out because biking in a place where most people have been on two wheels since birth proved quite daunting and overwhelming. It was also a Saturday which meant many more people and tourists were out and about than I'm assuming would normally be during the week. My rental bike was also on the big side so I had a rough time getting going and, coupled with a growing pregnancy belly, was just too awkward to be enjoyable. About an hour into our ride, after having fallen behind and been honked at a few times, I told Brian I was spent and we headed back to return our bikes -- therefore there are no pictures of our crazed Amsterdam biking adventures. Coincidentally, while biking in Bruges was one of my favorites parts of the week, biking in Amsterdam ended up being one of my least favorite things -- however, it is a place Brian and I would like to visit in the future... preferably when I'm not pregnant with a toddler in tow.
Having returned from Amsterdam, we decided against staying the last night in our rental and instead drove home, getting in just shy of midnight. It was great to be back in our own beds and it was nice to have a full day to recover before the start of the work/school week.
Our Bruges/Netherlands trip favorites:
Brian -- Biking in Bruges.
Liesel -- Ditto!
Ellie -- Belgian chocolates and seeing ducks and swans on the canals.
More adventures to come!
