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Tulips from bulb to bloom

A tulip grows from a bulb. You need to plant the bulb before the end of October (Norhtern hemisphere) so that it spend the winter underground and pop up…

Dead Bikes of Amsterdam

  People often ask how the city deals with dead bikes. By dead bikes I mean bikes that are locked in a public place with no apparent owner. There are a lot of bikes in Amsterdam. The figure that does the rounds is that there are about 1 million bikes owned by the 800 thousand…

Wonderful Dutch Windmills

The narrowest houses in Amsterdam

Amsterdam houses tend to be quite narrow. But sometimes this narrowness is taken to extremes! Which is the narrowest depends on how you define narrow. Do you take into account only the width of the facade? Does it matter if the house widens away from the street. I think so.

Amsterdam Drinking Water

  Nice restaurants provide a free carafe of tap water on request. This is how the conversation goes: Waiter: Would you like water? You: Yes please. Waiter: Still or with gas? (Almost tricking you into ordering a bottle.) You: Tap water will be perfect thank you, I hear you have wonderful tap water here, I’ve been…

Keukenhof Gardens and Tulip Fields Forever!

Early spring is tulip time and a fantastic time of year to visit Holland. Keukenhof Gardens is an extravaganza of shapes and colours of tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, orchids, lilies, cherry blossom, apple blossom, wisteria, and a whole lot more too! If you visit Amsterdam in April you really must visit Keukenhof Gardens. People often ask…

Amsterdam – Reypenaer Cheese Tasting Room

Reypenaer Cheese is fabulous. I always describe it as the kind of cheese that Dutch people buy each other for Christmas. They buy really high-quality cheese and they let them age slowly and carefully. If I could only eat 2 more Dutch kinds of cheese in my life, ever, they would be the 10-month goat’s…

Budapest – Budapest Guide

Andrea of Budapest guide is the owner/operator of Budapest guide and gives excellent and affordable private tours. Disclaimer: I’ve not actually been on a tour of her’s yet but I added her here as she comes so highly recommended by customers on my tours. Andrea is not only recommended by my clients but also Rick…

Paris – Sight Seeker’s Delight

One of the great things about living in Amsterdam is being so close to Paris! Lee and I love tours and we make a point of trying other tour companies in different cities. We saw a good deal on the TVG train and hopped on board for a day trip to Paris to try out…

De Belhamel – French – €€

De Belhamel is a long-established and much-loved restaurant in Amsterdam and I don’t know why it took me so long to eat there. Well, I did today and it was fabulous. It is the kind of place you can really push the boat out and have a superb – and to be fair pricey –…