The Netherlands  "There is not a richer or more carefully tilled garden spot in the whole world than this leaky, springy little country.”

The best of the Netherlands and Belgium. A solid 10 of a trip!    The people were ever so kind and friendly!
Planes, trains, boats, buses, bikes, walks. We were thankful for the business class air.  In 22 days…..
Amsterdam, Haarlam, Keukenhof, Rotterdam, Delft, Goud, Bruges, De Hahhn, Brussels, Arnhem, Otterlo, Hoge Veluwe National Park.

Our accomodations were superb. As we do with all our travels ...hours and hours were spent researching, planning, and organizing this trip,, netting a perfectly executed itinerary.

Highlights:
Amsterdam….The Dutch capital is a watery wonderland.  We loved  taking a  bike and barge trip out of Amsterdam to quaint evocative old towns where we enjoyed the canals, churches, museums and sitting in cafes soaking it all in. We biked about 80 miles and the weather was perfect. There was very little wind. Half of the group elected to use electric bikes but we chose the standard models and it worked out well. We pedaled to the  Zaanse Schans windmills. They were fantastic, as well as Keukenhof, the world’s biggest flower garden.  We cruised past seas of tulips and expansive green fields.  Our guides were fantastic and the other people on board came from 8 different countries around the world.
Back in Amsterdam, we had a moving experience at the Anne Frank House and loved the Van Gogh museum.
Rotterdam….They upgraded our room to the “Lover’s Suite”   at the Hotel Pincoffs. The room and hotel were incredible! Rotterdam was completely destroyed by the Nazis and their reconstruction is architecturally superb! The buildings were eye popping one of a kind designs that included a “vertical city”, a forest of cube houses, a pencil shaped residential tower, a swooping white cable stayed bridge, a fantastical horse-shoe shaped market and an ethereal “cloud like” building housing the city’s history museum. 
We took day trips to Gouda and Delft.  Shops stocking huge wheels of cheese spanned these two gorgeous quaint towns.
In Bruges, Belgium (the Venice of the North) we walked and walked mesmerized by the town’s beauty. We loved the Belgian beers, particularly Hoegaarden. My favorite was Rochefort 10 Trappist Ale. The chocolates are indescribably glorious.  We took day trips to Ghent and Brussels.
Arnhem/Otterlo Hoge Veluwe  In Otterlo we stayed at another fabulous hotel ..The Sterrenberg. It had a great wellness center-nude only- and yes we used the steam and sauna in our birthday suits. When in Rome….
We took a nice nature hike and rode bikes provided by the National Park, in Hoge Veluwe. A park that combines forests, sand dunes, marshes and ponds. The real treat however was at the park’s center . The Kroller-Muller Museum is one of the nation’s best with a fabulous assortment of artistic masterpieces, with a Van Gogh  collection that rivals the namesake museum in Amsterdam.
May 5th is the Netherlands national holiday-“Liberation Day” celebrating the freedom of almost  five years of Nazi occupation (1940-1945) In Otterlo there was a memorial ceremony that we attended that was quite emotional. The speakers included people from the Dutch resistance and survivors of the Holocaust.