The next day we took a bus to Middleburg and a short train trip to Antwerp, Belgium, which has one of the most impressive train stations in the world.
Antwerp Station
After we went swimming at the hotel, we took a bus and a walk to a castle that was also the silver museum. It had the tools that silversmiths used as well as beautiful objects made out of silver.
The Castle and Silver Museum
Then we took a tram to the medieval market square in the center of town for dinner.
Domburg is only 20 km from the Delta Expo, the exhibit about the gigantic engineering project that protects the Netherlands from flooding. So we rented a bakfiets and a kindertandem to go see it. The kindertandem is a tandem designed for a grown-up and a child to ride together.
Henry on the Kindertandem
William on the Kindertandem
The bike path took us through the dune woods, along some fields with grazing sheep, through a small town where we stopped for lunch and then over the giant storm surge barrier built after the catastrophic floods of 1953. After about 3 hours of serious pedalling we made it to the Delta Expo.
The Expo had a film about the 1953 flood, exhibits about the historical creation of Zeeland by draining the sea and, of course, about the storm surge barrier we had just ridden across.
William Controlling the Storm Surge Barrier
Henry the Mussel
Outside at the Expo we saw a seal show, walked through a whale building and played in the water park.
It took only 70 minutes to ride back to Domburg with the wind at our backs. We were ready for our pancake dinner!
Opening Up the Sluice Gates
The boys don’t have much school during the month of May, so we took a short holiday to Domburg, a village further south along the Dutch coast in the watery province of Zeeland. First we took the train to Middelburg. The whole town was decorated with bright pink flags and balloons and people were pouring in by train and by bicycle for the second etape of the Giro d’Italia bike race. There was even a mural made out of uncooked pasta!
Noodle Mural
We thought it was great fun until we discovered that all the buses going in the direction of our hotel were stopped until 8pm. Daddy made friends with the woman at the bike rental shop, who called her nephew, who took us to Domburg in his car. We got there 10 minutes after the bicyclists passed through and early enough for a walk on the beach after dinner.
The Beach at Domburg
We stayed at the Pancake House and Hotel in Domburg. The Dutch – and the boys – love pancakes.
We took the train to Leiden one afternoon and walked through the medieval part of town to the hortus botanicus. It’s been a botanical garden since the 16th century and has some pretty amazing plants. We walked a long catwalk at the top of a greenhouse full of carnivorous plants and saw bananas and vanilla beans growing.
A Truly Amazing Flower
The Spring Garden
After the garden we walked back through town. The fortifications are closed for renovation, but we took a picture of the gate.
April 30 is Koningindag or Queen’s Day and the whole country celebrates. Everyone wears orange and the sidewalks turn into one giant garage sale. Our neighborhood, Belgisch Park, had a street festival for the event. There was a stage with music and lots of stalls with food and games. The boys’ favorite was a big obstacle course. Daddy’s favorite was the china smashing where he threw cups into plates and bowls with a great deal of crashing. Mommy’s favorite was the “soessmijter” or cream puff catapault where the boys rolled a tennis ball up the ramp to trigger the catapault that threw something like a chocolate covered cream puff through the air into their hands.
Henry Pops the Balloon
William Races to the Finish
At the end of the day the kids tied orange postcards with their name and address on them to balloons. At the count of 10 they all let go of their balloons – and a giant gust of wind took most of them into the trees. Henry’s sailed free. William’s worked its way out of the tree after a big storm. William got his postcard back three days later from a town 200km from here. Henry’s hasn’t come back yet. We turned William’s in and are waiting to see who wins the balloon competition by having his or her postcard come back from the farthest away.
Waiting for the Balloon Countdown
We took the train to Utrecht to see the railway museum. They had a special exhibit of royal carriages, some of which we could go into. They are a lot more luxurious than the trains that we ride in!
Railway Boys Making a Getaway
You could also ride down a mine elevator down to an old mining village and saw the workshops where they made the first locomotive in the Netherlands and the first train station (in Amsterdam).
Kindertrein
There was even a scary roller coaster ride through a train yard. The scariest part was when it got completely black and we dropped down with a train coming at us!
After that we had to go to the playground to ride the train.
Riding the Rails
It warmed up all the way to 50 F (not considering the windchill) so we went to the beach with our Dutch friends. Roos is in the boys’ class at school and lives right around the corner. She has a three year old sister named Fleur. It was too cold to go in the water any further than an inch or two to get some water in our buckets, but that didn’t stop us from having a great time. When we needed to warm up we had some freshly fried fish called Kibbelingen (Mommy ‘went native’ and had a raw herring sandwich with Roos’s mom).
At the Beach with Roos
Tulips at Keukenhof
You can’t be in the Netherlands and spring and not go to the world famous Keukenhof Gardens. So we took the rare sunny day and went to see the flowers. The tulips weren’t blooming outside yet, but there were some gorgeous ones in a big greenhouse. And the hyacinths, fritalaria and other bulbs were blooming.
Tulips Boys
There’s lots to do there besides see the flowers. There are some fun play structures and lots of water. There’s a path of stepping stones like lily pads across a lake, which was a lot of fun until a swan bit Henry! He wasn’t expecting that.
A Water LadderIt was a beautiful day.Bloemenball Kabouters
Bunny Buckets
Good news – the Easter Bunny knows we’re in the Netherlands. He must know that we live near the beach too, because we got buckets and shovels instead of baskets. Oh, and chocolate chickens and bunnies and marzipan eggs and sugar chickens and cars and knights.
We had a four day weekend for Easter, so on Monday we went to the beach to test out the shovels. They work well.
Beach on Tweede Paasdag
William's Favorite Egg
Of course, we decorated Easter eggs. In fact, it was so much fun that Mommy rode her bike over to get us more eggs so we could keep decorating.
Our neighborhood, Belgisch Park, had an Easter party on Saturday. The downpour put an end to the bouncy house and the brass band, but the boys did get to make bunny masks.
Bunnies and Eggs
