April 11th, Wednesday : The Gard du nord railway station of Paris was buzzing with people due to a delay in the train departures. Me and 'A' were waiting to take our Thalys(train) to Amsterdam around 6.30 pm. I was very excited this time since I was heading to one of my dream destinations - Keukenhof Tulip Gardens!!!... Our train passed through the capital of Belgium- Brussels and few other interesting cities. We reached Amsterdam central around 10pm and took a 10 mins ferry right besides the station .
Well, I have a special mention regarding our Hotel stay ;-) .Guess what???..we stayed in a "Floating hotel" (Hotel in a boat), so takes the name "Botel" !!! The ferry showed us a night view of the lake IJmeer and its surrounding landscapes, eventually dropping us in our Botel around 11pm. Since it was late night, having run out of choices we ended up eating Cheese sandwiches and hibernated under our comforters. The occasional rocking of the boat made our night's sleep quite pampering and thrilling !!!...
Day 1:
April 12th,Thursday : Next morning, the sun rays pierced through our eyes and woke us up with a spectacular view outside our cabin window .. I could see water everywhere around us with few ships and a ship yard at a distance. We could actually feel the occasional rocking of the boat much in the morning adding to our experience. Our hungry tummies were filled by us gorging on a hearty English breakfast with Sausages, Bacon, Beans,cheese, salads, variety of breads and buns, corn-flakes with chocolate chips, juices, eggs and cafe ... Thank God!
So, now... Get Set Go....
Having a morning glance of the river and the neighborhood, we got back to the central station. An half an hour train trip took us to a place called "Leiden" from where again we took a bus to "Lisse" - the place where the Keukenhof Tulips garden is located... 'A' was making fun at my face that resembled a smiley embodying heights of enthusiasm and happiness . I actually don't remember the previous occasion when I was this excited to visit a place . Admiring the beauty of the Dutch houses and few private tulip fields on the way, we reached the garden atlast around 12.00 pm.
Keukenhof: I absolutely have no words to express my happiness while standing inside the garden and looking at the colourful Tulips. It was difficult to take off our awestuck eyes from each variety of Tulips and move on to another. We started with the "Historical Garden" followed by the house of 'Oranje Nassau' housing a huge collection of Gerbera flowers. The house of "Willem Alexander" had a huge display of innumerable variety of Tulips - a real not to miss .
Next comes the best part : " Kumaari ...en kaathal thikki, mukki, vikki, nikkuthu kumaari..." :-P...yeah..."The Tulip Fields" !!! (for my Non Indian Friends: this is the starting line of a Beautiful Tamil movie song which was shot in these fields..Indeed this song captivated me to visit this garden. Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuLc6Z4ID1U ) ...... Paying a special fee, we had our memorable boat ride which took us amidst the the Tulips fields through those narrow canals .. It was truly a heavenly feeling being in the middle of the intensely hued long stretches of tulips along with their mesmerizing special fragrance.
Returning back from the boat's ride, we had a chance to climb up a gigantic Windmill that gave us a complete view of the garden from the top. It was also time to buy a souvenir now - a pair of the famous wooden clogs of Netherlands. Our next visit was the house of "Beatrix" - a dream come true for orchid lovers , housing a fabulous collection of world's weirdest, colorful orchids and Anthuriums. It was nearing evening and time to click a few personal snaps in the remaining part of the gardens before twilight . We finished our day at keukenhof by around 7:00 pm.
Reached back Amsterdam around 9:00 pm.. and went madly searching for a dutch cuisine but ended up in an Argentinian steakhouse to feed our grumbling stomach. After enjoying our Argentinian grills, though my energy and legs were exhausted... I didn't wanna miss a glimpse of the night life of Amsterdam.... We bashfully took a stride in the celebrated "Red-Light district" holding 'A's' hands tight and pointing out in shock at the glamorous parade of women in red-fringed window parlours. Reached back our Botel around 11.30 pm after a tiring day... what a day it was !!!
Day 2:
April 13th, Friday : We started our day walking along the crowded streets of Amsterdam central looking at the distinguished Amusement bars, Coffee shops, actively moving trams, exclusive shops for finger fries, numerous souvenir shops etc.. Had a stoppage in Dam square which is supposedly the touristic zone. The square abounds with city pigeons (popular for bird feeding), museums and over crowded tourists.
Canal Cruise: The best way to view the city was to hop-on a Canal cruise seeing the important museums, buildings, squares etc.. through the windows of the cruise and getting to know a bit of history with the help of electronic tour guides. Though I found Amsterdam canals and streets a bit dirty and rusty compared to Paris , however we happened to cross a few catchy bridges and places during our 1 and 1/2 hrs circuit.
Following the ride, we tried eating an authentic Dutch food - a soused herring sandwich - that turned out to be horrible and finally regained back my palate by having my favourite Subway sandwich .
Madame Tussauds Wax Museum: Since It was my first ever wax museum, I was happily posing with all celebrities, International leaders, sportsmen etc..I tried my best to imitate the wax figures by reproducing their exact expressions and excitedly even dressed up similar to certain celebrities (guess my Bharathanatiyam practices helped me .. lol !) . It may sound funny for few of you ..but don't know why... I felt so emotional on seeing the wax statue of "Mahatma Gandhi". I got reminded of my 'Grandfather' who was a freedom fighter and a vivid Gandhian till his last breath (appuchiiiiii... I miss you..). I also imagined how my close friend 'Ganga' would have felt if she had been here being a hard core fan of Gandhiji. I satisfied my long time wish of giving a lovely kiss to Gandhi thatha with all my fondness :). Another memorable event inside this museum was - I got a chance to be in a film with Charlie Chaplin - a wonderful technological advancement in the field of motion capture. We were also educated with a brief demo in the art of making wax statues.
Anne Frank House: Our last place of visit at the end of this 2 day trip was "The Anne Frank House" located on the Prinsengracht canal is a museum dedicated to Jewish wartime diarist Anne Frank. This unique house was the hiding place for Anne Frank and her family for many years from Nazi Germans(Hitler). Famous Quotations, photographs from her diary written during the second world war were displayed. Films and original objects illustrated the events that took place in this house. An exact replica of the original red-checked diary was placed there. We followed the route set for the visitors, checking the sombre hidden rooms and felt very sorry for the pitiable life of Anne Frank. Unexpectedly finished our day with a heavy heart after seeing this museum.
Packing our bags, we reached our Bus station around 10:00 pm and started our way back to Paris. This Amsterdam trip is something special in my list of places visited and will be cherished in my memories forever !!!.
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