After another full day (6.75 miles of walking!), this has been the best tour so far! We started this morning with a bus tour to Keukenhof Gardens just outside of Amsterdam. We were in luck as the flowers were starting to bloom. Not all of them, but a good majority. The fields were already full of color as we made our way to the gardens. I've never seen anything quite like it. I took pictures, but they will not do it justice, by any means! This is a huge area with every kind of tulip, hyacinth and crocus you can imagine. As well as some sweet treats that we had to try out too! The Dutch Apple Pie was AMAZING!!! I thought my eyes were going to roll back into my head on that one! We explored the gardens for about 3 1/2 hours including climbing a windmill (only about 20 steps, so I had it easy today) to see out into the tulip fields. Let's just say I don't go speechless very often, but this was definitely an occasion that left me in that state. Stunning is all I can say. As we left the windmill to head back to the bus, we discovered another tasty treat.....Dutch Waffles. Oh. My. Yum!!!!! These are two very thin waffles with carmel sauce in between. Again, my taste buds were in seventh heaven! Good thing we're walking so much with all this amazing food we're finding! As we headed out of the gardens, we had to stop at the bulb shop. I'm going to need some help come this fall....I've got 105 tulip bulbs coming that will need to be planted. Volunteers???

After finishing at the gardens, it was back to Amsterdam for the next part of our tour. We boarded bus number two and were off to see some more of the country side. First stop, Zaanse Schans. This is a beautiful little town home to four working windmills. We got to see how the windmill actually works. This particular windmill was a saw mill, so it was cutting logs. The logs are brought in by boat and then left in the harbor to soak for one year. Once they've soaked for the appropriate amount of time, they are brought out of the water and the remaining bark is scraped off the log. It's then hooked up to a rope and sleigh and pulled into the mill. The mill is an exact replica of the one that was built in 1620 (the original was destroyed during WW II), so all the parts are the same as they were back then. Nothing new and shiny here, everything is wood or iron. The mill can cut 2 meters per hour where if they were doing it by hand, it would be 2 meters in 2 hours. They also do multiple cuts in that amount of time speeding up the process even more. This was a very interesting demonstration as I've never seen a working windmill before. See, I can still learn even though I'm not in school!

From here it was on to Volendam where we visited an cheese factory. Again, seventh heaven for me......mmmmmmmmm.......cheese! We watched a demonstration of how the cheese is made and then were sent to sample some different cheese. Most of them were very good, but I did find a couple that I had never heard of before that weren't my favorite. The one I thought was best was the baby Gouda with herbs......yummy! I had a hard time getting out of there without buying another suitcase full of just cheese! Probably not a good plan, so I settled for a cheese stick sampler instead. Before venturing off to our next destination, we enjoyed dinner on the boardwalk overlooking the water. De Lunch is home to the best fish and chips in Holland, so we had to check it out. True to it's word, the fish and chips was delicious! It didn't hurt that the special also included a much needed Heineken :)

Our final stop of the day included a ferry ride to Marken where we were in for another treat.....we learned how wooden shoes were made. How can you go wrong with shoes?? It was fun to see how they make the wooden shoes....mostly with machines, but some of it is still done by hand as well. Once we finished watching the demonstration, we got to try on the wooden shoes. Very cool, but probably not something I could wear to work often! However, they did have some very nice wooden clogs, so I got my wooden shoes anyway!!!  

After a long day, we are now relaxing at the hotel getting ready to head off to our next destination tomorrow, London. Tomorrows schedule is open, so it may just be some exploring around the hotel and finding somewhere for dinner and drinks, but you just never know! Hope you made it through April Fools Day without getting pranked too badly (I didn't.....thanks Helen!!!!). Good night from the Netherlands!