Last Pre-Baby Trip Day 4 (23 April, 2007)

^ The windmill behind the Hotel Orion at sunrise ^

After rollng out of bed a little later than we wanted, we battled with the Chinese for breakfast and afterwards we headed out to the Keukenhof at about 8:30. A couple of u-turns later and we were in the parking lot where we had no trouble at all getting in with the e-tickets Laura printed off before we arrived.

^ Variegated tulips at The Keukenhof ^

Although the Keukenhof was very beautiful, it was overshadowed a bit by how crowded it was - but crowds are to be expected at a world famous garden that's only open for 10 weeks a year.

^ Central section of The Keukenhof ^

We left the Keukenhof at approximately 1:00 and went for a drive north to Haarlem and then south back towards the hotel. The drive was supposed to be a 'best of' in regards to tulip fields, but almost all of the fields were past their peak and we saw very few flowers. So the drive went by very fast and we decided to continue on down to Den Haag and scout locations for tomorrow and possibly visit the Mauritshuis museum to allow ourselves a more relaxing Tuesday.

We drove into town with no trouble at all along the A44 road which goes straight into the downtown area. A left turn towards the Centraal Station, a right turn to cross Konigskade canal and a left turn for the parking garage marked 'Plein' and poof we were done!

We came up out of the garage and headed towards the station because we thought there'd be an ATM there and we were realizing that the Euro doesn't go as far as it does when someone else is paying the bills...we needed money.

We walked all over the pedestrian zone and found a great department store with delicious pastries and a nice cafeteria with a good vegetable buffet. Some light strolling took us around the rest of the downtown area and as we were heading back to the parking garage to find a more substantial something to eat, we walked through the Binnenhof - where the upper branch of the Dutch Parliament does their job.

Just north of the Binnenhof (and literally a spit watermelon seed from our parking garage) was the Mauritshuis. We had missed their closing time by roughly 15 minutes, but we didn't beat ourselves up over it too much because of the fact that they're closed on Mondays. Even so, it was frustrating to walk around for four hours following signs to a museum only to have it directly behind where you first saw light of day.

We had a nice light dinner at a cafe on the main square and drove back to Kaag to get some sleep.

^ Bench at The Keukenhof overlooking tulip fields ^