Early Friday morning we set out for Amsterdam. Our time in Belgium was great and we did and saw a lot but we wanted to get back to spend sometime with our friends before leaving town for good.
It was a cloudy, cold, windy and overcast morning. We are going to take our time getting back and make a few stops along the way to sightsee. We happened by this tower first thing. We couldn't find much about it but that it was from 11th century.
Our next stop this morning was for breakfast at a restaurant attached to an old windmill built in the 1700's.
There are a lot of these all over the countryside in the Netherlands.
Some of them are available for sightseeing and tours although others are no longer in use.
We are fortunate that this one had a nice restaurant and gift shop attached.
There was also a very nice play area for kids inside so parents can eat while the kids entertain themselves.
Bennett had a great time playing with all the toys especially the cars and the kitchen.
Mommy and Daddy enjoyed their breakfast of Dutch pancakes and an omelette with speck, the European version of bacon.
Our breakfast was really good. The Dutch pancake, which is as big as a dinner plate, was fluffy and a little sweet. It was the first one we had in the Netherlands. I need to have a few more before we leave. I will miss these. Maybe I can find a recipe online.
After breakfast we continued on with our drive to Gouda, Belgium.
It was an overcast morning and a bit on a chilly side but there were people out in the water para-sailing nonetheless. We also saw some people gliding.
We got into town around lunch time. Gouda, which was granted city rights in 1272, is famous for it's Gouda cheese, smoking pipes, and 15th-century city hall.
In the Middle Ages, a settlement was founded at the location of the current city by the Van der Goude family, who built a fortified castle alongside the banks of the Gouwe River, from which the family and the city took it's name. The area, originally marshland, developed over the course of two centuries. By 1225, a canal was linked to the Gouwe and it's estuary was transformed into a harbour. Gouda's array of historic churches and other buildings makes it a very popular day trip destination.
We parked alongside the canal. There were no barriers or fencing along the edge of the canal so we had to be careful not to make any wrong moves with out rental car. We wouldn't want to end up having to dig our car out of the canal. Tami said this is a common problem in Amsterdam when it comes to bikes. People lose their bikes in the canal for a couple of reasons such as they drive into the canal drunk or their bikes get stolen and thrown into the canal after being salvaged for parts. They have a special boat that comes down the canal to dig up the misplaced bikes once a month.
There was a fair going on in the city center today.
The Gothic city hall was really impressive.
We sopped in for a cheese tasting in an old cheese shop called ‘t Kaaswinkeltje. It is a very special little store in the heart of the old Gouda inner city. Because, they are the only store in Holland selling exclusively Gouda’s farmer’s cheese. Cheese that’s still made according to the old traditions on farms in the Gouda area. And unlike factory cheese, it is cheese that is not pasteurized which preserves it's delicious flavor.
Fortunately they also sell pasteurized cheese so I could have a taste. There were a lot of choices. The mimolet was our favorite. It almost had an orange aftertaste to it.
It started raining so we didn't spend too much time in town. Plus, we had one more stop to make.
We hit the road so we could visit a farm near Amsterdam that made their own cheese and wooden shoes.
The farm is called Clara Maria. There weren't clear instructions on where to go and how to do a tour so we just wondered around on our own self-guided tour of the farm.
We stopped in the barn first to feed the cows.
Bennett was really brave and loved handing the cows hay to eat.
There were chickens in the barn too. They were too quick for us to pet.
Our second stop was in the wooden shoe shop. Here we could see the already made shoes, half-made shoes and the equipment to make the shoes.
The ground around the equipment was covered in wood shavings.
Bennett made a friend.
The cheese shop was our next stop. It was interesting to see the cheese making process in all of it's different stages.
Here the cheese was just starting in the huge wooden barrel and right beside it on the bench some of the cheese was already shaped for aging.
This was one of our favorite stops along our route back. Bennett had a lot of fun too.
We made it back to Amsterdam around 5 PM. Tami's brother was in town and we enjoyed a nice big dinner together. Everyone was exhausted after a long day and we went to bed early.
I am getting a little depressed out trip is coming so close to an end.
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