With the south of the Netherlands covered, we moved onwards to visit Sonja's relatives in the rest of the country. We were incredibly lucky to be offered a place to stay by one of Sonja's cousins in Rotterdam while they took a camper van holiday. We were able to stay in Rotterdam as a hassle free base to explore the rest of the country and catch up with as many of the relatives as we could. It really felt like a holiday from our holiday.

Rotterdam looks quite different to a "typical" Dutch city, due to heavy bombing in World War 2 they pretty much had to start over again from scratch. It's more car oriented than other Dutch cities, but even there the bicycle still reigns supreme. Having it as our base, we ended up becoming very comfortable in Rotterdam, and with the close proximity of a number of Sonja's relatives it was our home away from home.

Our time in the Netherlands included a weekend away in Amsterdam, which felt like a holiday within our holiday from our holiday and we were starting feel like we were in the movie Inception. We were shown the red light district at night and it was amazing to see how much of a tourist attraction the area is. People go there to see it like any other museum or monument, which is pretty surreal.

A number of Dutch cities we visited, Delft, Amsterdam, Leiden, Dordrecht and Amersfoort to name a few, are based around a system of canals which give them a distinctive charm.

The Dutch people don't seem to be very proud of their cuisine but when it comes to sweets and snacks we think they excel. Stroopwaffles, licorice, poffertjes, speculaas all delicious, and the cheese is awesome.