According to forecast (which proved correct), the weather would still be the most favorable on Monday, so I had planned my ride to "De Keukenhof" for that day, the famous, big exhibition of flowers which I finally wanted to visit because on the website it says, "If you haven't seen De Keukenhof you haven't seen Holland.".
So I inquired about it at the reception on Sunday night since they sometimes offer discounts for various tourist activities at the Stayokay hostels. They didn't have any discount for the entrance alone though, only for a bus trip including entrance (which would certainly have cost more than the entrance fee alone though, even with discount). I said I was gonna rent a bike to ride there. The guy at the reception desk told me, "you can't go there by bike."
"Why not?," I asked, and he said it was way too far.
"According to my map it's about the same distance as Zandvoort," I said unimpressed, "I'm an athlete, I'm on the bike every day at home and sometimes ride farther than that." They reception guy remained doubtful, and his colleague told him, "that's because you're a pussy!" :D
The way to De Keukenhof the next day proved very long indeed; I had chosen a route passing Schiphol (the airport) to the south, riding through "Het Amsterdamse Bos" (an artificially planted, small forest), after which I found a road closed off which drove me even farther off to the south. I entered a sandy track through the countryside where a sign warned of free ranging "Scotse hoglanders", and it gave the instruction to keep a distance of at least 5 meters to the animals. As I rode on I saw them crowded right across the path: Scottish Highland cattle with long, tan fur. One of them, certainly a bull with long, pointy horns, stood so close by the track to the right that I was forced to pass him closer than 2 meters - two others were not much farther off to the left. He ignored me.
Villages, fields, sheep, chickens... a beautiful windmill built back in 1778 and named "De zwarte ruiter" ("The black horseman").
Then I came to a canal and my route should continue, according to the map, on the other side of it. Puzzled I looked at the map and at the water when an elderly man addressed me who had been sitting by one of the boats. "You want to get to 'Four'?," he asked, referring to the number this route was given on the map. For 1 euro he set me over on his little ferry boat - only me, with my MacBike. He must be sitting there all day long waiting for some occasional customer...
Having struggled much against the strong wind on the latter part of the ride, I eventually arrived in Lisse, the town nearby which De Keukenhof is situated,found an Albert Heijn (supermarket) where I bought some food, then asked two young ladies in Dutch for directions, was given directions in Dutch and was proud to have understood everything. :)
De Keukenhof was... crowded, despite it being a Monday with somewhat rough and cold weather and the quite enormous entrance fee of 14.50 euro. There had certainly been a lot of effort put into the very artful gardening, but apart from that it's just another park and simply way too crowded, although I have to admit it wasn't early when I arrived; having started in AMsterdam around 10:30 AM it had in fact taken me 3 hours to get here due to my detour (at least 25 miles, I guess). I wouldn't be able to stay for all too long although I hoped to find a shorter way back. At least the atmosphere was friendly there, and then I found that hall with an exhibition of truly spectacular flowers. Many of them were huge or had very exotic shapes or coloring, and the sizable hall was filled with the intense fragrance of the giant lilies displayed near its center.
This exhibition hall was the highlight, but thereafter I still found a nice windmill open to the visitors, its wings continually spinning in the brisk wind, and of course I wouldn't miss to go up inside.
I did find a shorter way home (to Amsterdam) indeed, passing Schiphol to the north, and much closer this time - at one point the road would in fact pass under a taxiing road where airplanes would roll to the runway! I was fascinated and paused there for a while to take pictures of the big machines as they passed by.
It was evening when I arrived back at the Vondelpark.
***
On the remaining two full days I wouldn't leave the city again. My plans were to just visit some markets and the Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam's botanic garden. While entrance to the botanic garden back here in Bonn is free, the Hortus charges a steep 7.50, but thanks to a little discount card from the hostel I had to pay only 6 euro. Although the area of the garden is slightly smaller than Bonn's, it's definitely worth seeing, especially the very spacious tropical greenhouse. No good pics of it though because it was so damp inside that the lens of my cam would get cloudy.
The second largest greenhouse was home to the cycads, the ancient family of plants which are often called palm-ferns but are, as I learned, related to neither palms nor ferns. They were all planted in giant pots, and the oldest of them is 300 years old!
Then there was still a small but very lovely greenhouse which houses free-flying, tropical butterflies! Most numerous were the ones of vivid orange color, named "The Flying Dutchman". There were also some very ethereal ones with transparent wings framed with black and specks of white, and some few larger, black ones with white and violet marks on the wings. But the Flying Dutchmen were everywhere around.
Light rain had set in as I was leaving the Hortus, and my last plan for this day was to hopefully find myself a good book. There are two stores with English books I know in Amsterdam, one of them a smallish one across the street from the Munttoren (the lovely bell tower near the flower market), the books there are rather inexpensive but the downside is, the paperbacks stacked on the tables are unsorted and it's very hard to find anything. Along the walls are still some illustrated, mostly hardcover volumes on various subjects, but I didn't mean to buy anything unwieldy. I hoped to find something Lovecraftian...
The other bookstore I know is the American Book Center (abc.nl) on the Spui (square), it's three floors and well sorted but has astronomical prices. Discouraged I walked back once more to the store by the Munttoren. The weather had turned uncomfortable and I'd prefer to ride back to the hostel earlier this evening and just read a bit under the high roof of the cozy dorm, but just couldn't seem to find anything, not anything decent at all. I was about to give up disappointed when among all the covers, suddenly the name Hannibal sprang into my eye,along with a familiar face wearing an elegant hat and dark glasses and a cunning little smile. My hero, Hannibal Lecter? No doubt, I had found... not simply some halfway decent book but *my* book!
More photos of the trip will be found on my Facebook.
