Today was the next to the last day here in Europe. We decided to take in a site that I have wanted to see since I was a kid: Madurodam (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madurodam). Built in 1952, Madurodam shows Holland in miniatures, with moving trains, boats, drawbridges, and cars. It has many interactive exhibits that were a big hit with the kids visiting the park. Who wouldn't like to try to extinguish the flames in a burning boat by shooting water from a fire boat? Technologies such as how shipping locks and water wheels work were shown and then the kids could try them out themselves. Many of the sights we've seen in the Netherlands were there in miniature. Daiv was a great sport to go along with this trip.
Madurodam is in The Hague, so we saw a bit of it, with lots of embassies. This is also the center of the Dutch government and where the king lives.
Then we made another trip to Haarlem, just for lunch. (Hey, we had two more days on the train pass!). We took a train labeled "Sprinter" thinking it was the express. Well, it wasn't and stopped at every town and wide spot along the way. Needless to say by the time we got to Haarlem, we were so hungry we thought everything looked great (well, maybe not the raw herring). Here are pictures of the station at Haarlem.
It looks so continental. The stations in Amsterdam and Leiden are much more modern.
We found an Italian place that served a great bowl of minestrone.
And the coffee was hot and strong, served with a flair.
We had a window seat at a busy intersection. We are amazed that there were no accidents as families, old folks, kids on their way home from school all shared the city streets with buses, trams, garbage trucks, cars, and delivery vans as well as tourists who are wandering all over the place.
Then back to the apartment for more research on the beers of Holland and Belgium - another great day; even the weather is warming up! The peonies are really blooming:
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