Keukenhof Gardens, Holland

On Saturday, April 25th, we decided to take a trip up to see the tulips.  My friend Sarah has always wanted to go and is PCSing so I thought it would be fun to take Mom there as well.  We did a day trip on the bus.  It was EARLY in the morning that we had to be there to leave.

The first stop on our tour was a cheese and wooden shoe factory.  We did the cheese part of the tour first.  This is where they mix all the ingredients.  There is quite a process to it and takes a bit of time.  They have all their cows right there, so it is the freshest cheese! 

This is the wife of the farmer.  She is actually American and hilarious!!  I loved listening to her stories and she was a hoot!!  In her hands are different ages of cheese.  The one on the top is the oldest and the smallest because as the cheese ages, it sweats and decreases in size and gets harder.

This was her husband, again he was hilarious as well!!  I would LOVE to sit down at one of their family dinners and just listen.  

This is the machine that he puts in a block of wood and it carves the outside of the shoe.  I wasn't close enough to see it, but he had this TV monitor so the rest of us could.

This is what came out of that.  The wood is wet when it is finished.

Then the next step is this machine, this is where they hollow out the shoe.  He said it takes about 10 minutes to carve out a pair of shoes.

These are some that his dad actually wore.  They are for walking on water, or marsh.  Because it is so rainy in Holland the land gets wet and these were the easiest shoes to walk in.

These where his dad's ice skates and he said he really did use them!  They say they do wear them, but mostly just the men who are out with the cows and in the fields.

This shows the knife blades that they run through the milk to get it to curdle and then start adding the other ingredients and it mixes it all in.

After that was breakfast!   We had fresh cheese, eggs and bread.  It was sooooo yummy!!!  I love cheese anyway, but these were AWESOME!!!!

The wonderful cows that gave us their milk!!  They have a lot of them!!

Mom and I in some really big shoes!!!  I am not sure if we can fill these shoes!!  :-) 

Then we jumped back on the bus for about another 30 minutes to drive to Keukenhof.  When we arrived there were hundreds of buses there, so we knew it would be a little crowded, but that was OK.  The history of Keukenhof, the name of meaning "kitchen garden", goes back to the 15th century.  Countess Jacqueline of Bavaria, Jacoba van Beieren (1401-1436) gathered fruit and vegetables from the woods and dunes here for the kitchen of Teylingen Castle.  Keukenhof Castle was built in 1641, and the estate grew to an area of over 200 hectares (494 acres).  It was in 1949 a group of 20 flower bulb exporters came up with a plan to use the estate for a permanent exhibition of spring-flowering bulbs.  The park opened in 1950 with 236,000 visitors the first year along.

As you walk in there is a big fountain and tons of people!  There was music playing and everybody seemed to be in a good mood!

These were so vibrant and beautiful!!!  I loved the white around the edges!

They didn't just have tulips here, they had all types of flowers everywhere in the garden.

Sarah might hurt me because I put this one in, but she stopped and smelled the flowers!!  There were some parts of the garden that the smell was so strong you didn't even have to bend down to smell it!  It was great!!

Mom with the tulips - both are beautiful!!!!

This is a Monarch Parrot flower - I thought it was a very interesting looking.

They had all sorts of different flowers put together and made it so beautiful!!!

I am really not sure what this statue was in the middle of the lake, but it was interesting.

Sarah doesn't like her picture taken at all, but my mom asked, so she begrudgingly said yes.  I think it is a great picture!!!

Rows and rows of flowers everywhere you looked!

There were some beautiful swans on the lake as well.

I love the vibrant colors and the different flowers all around!

Since I didn't have the kids with me, I had to do some of the fun stuff!!  I am a kid at heart!

These are called a double flaming parrot.

I have never seen a tulip quite like this - it is called the honeymoon.

They had flowers even growing on the wall.

This tree was absolutely gorgeous!!!

They had this cool windmill there as well.  We decided there was way too many people to even think about going up there.

The theme for this year was Van Gogh - not all the flowers were up and blooming on this one but it still looked neat.

Mom and I having a great time checking out all the beautiful flowers!!!

I liked this one because of all the different kinds of flowers and colors all  mixed up.

This is Carolus Clusius.  He studied law and medicine and traveled extensively throughout Europe to collect, study and cultivate plants.   These plants were of great importance to medical science and this work made Clusius one of the first true botanists.

They had quite a bit of modern art there.  This one is called Seagulls and it cost 2,850 euros to build.

This was at the entrance of the gardens and was playing some fun music.

It was an old fashioned player.  You can see the paper going through it in the middle there.

This was another modern art called glasses and cost 4,000 euros.  I just can't believe what they will pay for.

It was a fun day and I am so glad I was able to share it with my mom!!!  We were pretty tired by the end of the day and ready to relax on the bus on the LONG drive home.

Darmstadt

On Thursday, April 23rd, my mom, Maria and I headed off to Darmstadt.  This is where my friend spent most of her childhood and she was going to be our tour guide for the day!!!  It is only about an hour drive from here, so it was a nice drive and the sun decided to come out for us as well!!!  It was a great start to the day!!  Darmstadt holds the official title "City of Science" as it is a major center of scientific institutions, universities and high technology companies.

This is the Ludwig monument, the first Grand Duke of Hesse.  It was built on June 14, 1841 the birthday of Ludwig.  The statue was donated in gratitude for the adoption of the first Hessian Constitution of 1820 and is today one of the most famous urban monuments.

As you know many cities in Germany have different statues, for Darmstadt it is the lion.  We like lions in our family!!!

This is a statue of Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse who ruled after Ludwig.  One interesting thing was he was connected through his own and his children's marriages to the British Royal Family, the Imperial House of Russia and a few other Royal Houses of Europe.

Mom in front of the castle there.  We wanted to go visit it, but found out they changed their hours and they aren't open on Thursdays.

I just thought  these were really cool!!!

This used to be a government building but was turned into a university.  It is a big university town!

Me with a lion!!!  There was a new museum that had just opened up that Maria hadn't been in so we decided to check it out.

These were really, really cool.  It is made all with wine corks!!  If you can zoom in on it you can actually see the corks.  The artist made them to teach on Roman architectural history.

This one you can see the corks a little better.

This is a Roman mosaic that was found during construction work in 1848-1849.  The center of the picture is taken up by Oceanus, the Roman god of the sea.

So when we came across this we had no idea what it was.  It looks very strange.  Lucky for us Maria was there and she could translate.  There was also a computer image nearby and this is what it was.

A bird was mummified to be buried with his owner.  I would have never guessed a bird was in there.

One of the mummies in the museum. 

This is Louis X - he had begun establishing collections in the fields of antiquities, art, technology and nature and they said he could be considered the founder of the museum.  The aim of his activities was to create a public museum "to promote true enlightenment and the spread of useful knowledge."

I liked this jewelry box, look at the legs - they are sphinxes.

I thought the boys would have loved this samurai outfit, especially since they are learning the sword in karate!

There is still part of me that is amazed at what the knights wore and how heavy they were.  Also the designs of many of them are so intricate.

This was my favorite gun - it is five barrel rifle.  There are two stands to help the person firing it.  I bet it punches a wallup!

These were made out of wood instead of steel or iron for the horse.

These were trophies that they won - the middle one they actually drank wine out of.

Can you guess what this is?!?!  It is an old time calculator - pretty cool huh?!?  I have no idea how to use it.

These are some old instruments.  The one I like best is the musical harp on the bottom, where you use your fingers and water to make the sounds.

They also had some cool fossils in this museum.  This was one big mammoth!

This is fossil coral - I thought it looked really neat!

This is the famous white tower in Darmstadt.  You can climb up to the top for a great view, we were a little pressed for time so we decided to pass on that.  We then headed for a wonderful German lunch at a local restaurant and then it was time to go back and get the children.  We had a wonderful time in Darmstadt!!!!