Family holiday to Holland

In the previous post, I wrote about my recent trip to Holland and now I'd also like to share my previous 'ancient' family holiday to Amsterdam. It was during summer, way back in 2005 and at that time my son was just 4 yrs old. How time flies...

In Amsterdam, we stayed at the Victoria Hotel which my husband booked through the website. Upon arrival at the Schiphol airport, we took the train of about 15-20 mins to the city centre station and our hotel was just across the road. 

It was actually a short trip, 4D3N in Amsterdam. Since it was our first time to Holland and for convenience, we took 3 tour packages to cover Amsterdam City Centre, Madurodam and Volendam.

In front of Victoria hotel

The room in the Victoria hotel

We had our meal in one of the Muslim restaurants in the city centre

In front of pottery shop in Amsterdam.

The 1st tour pkg was going around the Amsterdam city, including the visit to the diamond factory and pottery shop. As in other guided tour, we were listening to the tour guide story where he mostly provided the general information of the city and also touched on the history of the city, bla bla. The interesting part was the multi-lingual ability of the tour guide, a jovial person and when he made jokes in 3 different languages (English, Italian & French) our group in tour bus took turn laughing. I really think it was amazing and quite funny though :) (just imagine, when a group was laughing, the other groups were looking blankly & curious of what was so funny till he told in their language hehee)

@ Pottery shop

@ one of the diamond factories

In front of old windmill

For the 2nd package, we went to Madurodam. A very cute, tiny city and it has been the smallest city in the Netherlands for more than 60 years. Canals, windmills, gabled houses, airport, train station and all kinds of other typical Dutch scenes. We felt like we were the 'giants' walking around Netherlands. Fyi, the miniature city is on a scale 1:25 :)

According to the info from its website, Madurodam is currently closed due to renovations until April 2012.

Rates 2012	Individuals	Groups from 20 persons
Children 0-2	free	free
Children 3-11	€ 10.50	€ 7.25
Adults	€ 14.50	€ 10.25
65+	€ 13.50	€ 10.25

Below are few pictures of us, taken in Madurodam. Children will love the place, guaranteed!

Akid was posing in front of windmill miniature

For the last tour pkg, we were brought to visit the clog factory, cheese factory and the fishing village in Volendam.

The scenery of windmills on the way to clog factory

The demo of how they make clogs

Akid is in the 'giant clog' nearby the clog factory

cheese factory - google

After visited the cheese factory, we went to Volendam, another popular tourist spot. Volendam is well-known for its old fishing boats and their traditional life and we noticed that some (not many though) residents were still wearing their traditional Dutch costume.

In Volendam, we just strolled along the shops that mostly selling souvenirs and seafood meals. As far as I remembered, the prices for some souvenir stuffs such as fridge magnets, pottery, clogs, etc were a bit cheaper than sold in Amsterdam. So I myself was a bit crazy hopped in and out of the souvenir shops there.

Being on the tour package, the flaw was a time limit. We were given less than 1 hr there and asked to be in the bus at a certain time. Unfortunately we were late and guess what?? Our tour bus left us!!! :( However, after asking around, we headed to the Amsterdam by the public bus and it was way cheaper than taking the tour package ;p That was really an experience that we can't easily forget ;)

A nice view of fishing village

In front of one of the traditional homes in Volendam