Quaint and Charming Holland

After we left Haarlem, Netherlands and Corrie Ten Boom’s home, we took a drive to the Atlantic Ocean. To warm us up from the chill we went to a restaurant on the beach and had some delicious hot chocolate.

The hot chocolate and soup were served in glasses.

Attractive presentation.

I really liked their decor.

After getting warmed up and our tummies filled, we walked down to the beach. I wanted to stick my feet into the Atlantic Ocean while standing on Holland soil, but then I decided my hand would work just fine. haha  Too cold.

Our traveling companions who now want to see the world.Oh boy, what door have we opened up?

Razor shells which are a type of clam.

There were thousands of them along the beach.

I found this You Tube video showing how they catch and cook them.

You have to at least see the first part of the video where they catch them. Super fascinating!

A mobile cheese cart near the beach, with many types of cheeses for sale.

In search of a windmill for me to see, we started down the highway to the next town, passing beautiful countryside…

…and this beautiful windmill.

We finally found this one built in the 1300’s!!! Amazing to me.

Every town we drove to was historic. Brick streets, quaint houses. So different than America where our oldest buildings are only a few hundred years old.

What I saw of Holland was very clean, quaint and charming.

Bikes seem to be the main mode of transportation, making for pretty quiet streets.

Another cheese shop where we bought the most delicious gouda cheese for an unbelievably low price compared to here in the States.

Fresh bagels. And Serenity loves bagels so I had to get a picture of her in front of this little shop. (Sadly for her she doesn’t get to eat any since I rarely buy them. 🙂 “Why not?”, you may wonder. Almost every brand is made with white flour and we just prefer whole grains. Well, most of us do. Serenity may differ on that, but we’re working on her.)

A meat shop that was only 2 stores down from the cheese shop.

Our tour guide, Michiel, bought us a little tasting of sausage.

It was a lovely day in Holland but finally we had to head for the airport where we said “Goodbye”  to our friend and caught a flight to Oslo, Norway. We landed around 11pm but by the time we got to our hotel, it was quite a bit later.

Just take a look at the wall of clocks to see what time it was.

These girls may look all peppy but they were tired out, so “I love sleep” was very fitting.

And we all rested on our heads in the teeniest of European style rooms for a short night of rest.