Travel Tales: Cruising the Canals of Holland (The Netherlands)

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By Pam Walker

Covid was waning and the travel bug was really getting to me. With friends in Amsterdam that own a hotel, there was no better way to get away from the winter blues than to escape to Holland.

Flying was – well – not so pleasant. But after a while, I forgot the loathsome face mask on the seven plus hours of flight and in the crowded airports. The Amsterdam airport is huge! So a car service was the perfect solution to get to my friend’s hotel. The lovely Legend Le Grand is only a few blocks away from Dam Square, the center of everything.

Mask wearing in Amsterdam was not entirely necessary, and walking the canals with spring flowers and people everywhere was a wonderful escape from what the masked world was going through.

A few days in Amsterdam, visits to Delft with its blue pottery and to Maastricht to see windmills, and just enjoying the spring weather were enough. Amsterdam, called the Venice of the North, is a great jumping off place for river cruises and boat trips. You can reach every part of Holland on the water. What better way to see the countryside in spring than to cruise to Rotterdam, a wonderful modern city, and on to other towns such as Haarlem, Utrecht, or The Hague where so many international political meetings are held.

Remember the little Dutch boy who put his finger in a hole in a dike to save his city? There are similar dikes everywhere, just like the one he put his finger in. What is remarkably interesting too is that almost all the farms that you pass have these dikes around their fields to keep the water out! What a difference from our drought ridden fields of the American West.

Everything is so green – everywhere! And those beautiful willow trees that so love drinking up water, are also everywhere, with branches hanging and dancing in the wind. Here, too, every April the famed tulips bloom. A visit to the Keukenhof Gardens is a must as well as seeing the famed Floriade Flower exhibition also held in spring.

If you love flowers, and river cruising, you will love the Netherlands. Springtime or any time, to cruise the canals of this little country is well worth the effort!

Pam Walker is a Travel Advisor with Virtuoso. More information at pam@walkeradventures.com or www.walkeradventures.com