You are going to Netherlands with a toddler. What do you do. Quite a lot actually.
Our typical search for places to visit and off beat locations in any new country has got some new filters added now. Kid friendly places, parks, animals, … the list goes on. And it is good to have some places that the kids really enjoy so that they bring back fond memories of their own and look forward to the next adventure. Our trip to Netherlands was from Paris and we wanted our daughter to experience the trains in Europe. It is a short ride till Amsterdam. From Amsterdam we took a bus to reach Rotterdam and again a train ride back to Paris.
Let’s start with a bit of dutch history which is still visible at places across Netherlands and are the iconic symbol of this country. Centuries back, the explorers coming to places as far as Asia were dutch, the earliest stock market was also in Netherlands and they had a powerful army. And one of the reasons for this success were the windmills. At that point in time the purpose of windmills was not to produce electricity but they used them as Sawmills to build ships. And ships were the key to power and trade which made this country one of the most powerful ones of that time. That’s why we see pictures of beautiful windmills in stamps, in tourism promotions and pretty much everywhere when we are talking about Netherlands. Of course there are things other than windmills as well and lets get to it.
Things to Do:
– Zaanse Schans: There are many ways to reach this beautiful place from Amsterdam with public bus being the cheapest one. But we really enjoy a guided tour where there is someone in the bus to educate you about what you are going to see and has the necessary local knowledge to answer your questions. Apart from that, it is also packaged with multiple places making it really convenient for us. In this place they make a lot of cheese and shoes. We went for cheese tasting at one place and were able to differentiate between dozens of flavours of cheese based on how they are made and from what they are made of. It was also very interesting to see the mechanical hardwares used to create wooden shoes. And yes some people do still use them. There are a lot of colourful ones in display like the one in the image below. You can also go inside some of the windmills too to see how they operate. This place will easily take 3-4 hours of your time if you want to truly enjoy it.
– Giethoorn: This is one of the prettiest villages that we have ever seen. Try to reach here during lunch time as there are lot of great eating joints near the canal serving good local food. The journey from Amsterdam to here was a very scenic one and again we took a guided day trip in this case as well. The houses were lovely and you would feel like settling here at some point in time. The boat ride here is a must as it takes you around the village as well as inside the large water body surrounding it. There are also lot of small shops here selling local jewelleries etc. And do try the ice cream here.
– City Walk: Inside the city we used to take walk along the canals and look for good restaurants to try out. The canal ride here did not appeal us that much as we had two other good ones for that trip: One in Bruges and one in Giethoorn. But it is a popular thing to do as a tourist.
– Other places: The wax museum, church and red light district are the other key attractions but we had either seen them in other cities or it was not feasible in our itinerary.
– Rotterdam Zoo: We had couple of experiences with zoos in India but we were always looking for more animals and a gigantic aquarium. So taking our daughter to zoo was on top of our list. The Rotterdam zoo is very famous and has a large collection of very diverse wild life. This needs one full day. It was walking distance from our Airbnb. The first point here is the sea life with very colourful animals inside. We also enjoyed the Guerrilla section and the big butterfly dome. This place is not just for kids. As adults, we also had a great time here.
– Het Park: With a kid, we try to keep a day or a half-day dedicated to a park. This is where she can easily run around, rest if needed and give us a short break from the otherwise tiring itinerary. Het Park is a really big one with lot of water bodies inside. There is a good restaurant inside as well with a nice view. This is also a good place for photography with a nice lush background.
Accommodation: In Amsterdam the accommodation is very expensive. Most of the Airbnbs were more expensive than the hotels so we had to settle for a hotel only here. But with good public transportation, you can stay a bit on the outer part of the city to get good hotels at a reasonable price and use tram to commute. In Rotterdam it is better to use Airbnb. Ours was located at the city centre with a great view of the canal. There were lot of Turkish restaurants near by and we tried few of them which turned out to be pretty good.