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| Carefully treading on the ice and snow. Vondelpark, Amsterdam |
It hailed twice before we left the house this morning. Small white squares of ice scattered across the ground and melted over the puddles of yesterday's wet sleet, which had frozen over last night.
It was well below freezing so when we eventually built up the courage to leave, we had layered up so much that it was difficult to bend our arms and our legs were as straight as sticks.
We hobbled to the tram stop carefully and caught the next one into Amsterdam city centre. By then the sky had cleared and it was a marvellous blue sky day.
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| Heading to the tulip fesitival |
We arrived into the capital of the Netherlands three days ago after a wonderful Christmas period in Ireland, exploring old mythical castles and walking through green paddocks looking for sneaky leprechauns.
Today, though, we fought the cold for it was National Tulip Day! Could anything be more Dutch than gardens of beautiful tulips! In celebration of the upcoming tulip season (which runs March to May) over 200,000 tulips are trucked into Amsterdam from Northern Holland for residents (and tourists alike) to pick for free!
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| Walking over one of the many canals |
It is roughly estimated that over 1.7billion tulips will make their way into Dutch homes over the season and the festive event certainly goes along way to building up the excitement!
So proud that we had made the effort to leave the house in such cold temperatures we sat comfortably on the small tram our knees bouncing together. We decided to get off a little earlier and walk up Leidsestraat towards Dam Square.
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| Bikes, canals, gingerbread houses |
Dam square is in the heart of the historic centre. Boarded on three sides by the neoclassical Royal palace, a grand gothic style new church and on the south Madame Tussaud's wax museum. Interestingly it got its name from its original function: it was a dam. Built in 1270 the dam formed the first connection between the settlements on both sides of the Amstel river.
Over the centuries the dam grew and developed. It was home to a large fish market where ships moored to unload their catches. Eventually the water on both sides of the dam was filled in and today the river shoreline sits over 750 meters north. It was on the old cobbled stones of Dam square that the rainbow gardens of tulips were set up.
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| Dam square Tulip festival |
Walking down along the canals we crossed bridges laden with old bikes. It was a busy day, tourists walked around with bulky cameras around their necks and bicycles flew past corners at break neck speed.
The apartments lined up against each other were similar to gingerbread houses; frosted in white with colourful bricks and painted window ledges.
With the Christmas lights still hanging across the street and with the ice below our boots, it still felt very festive! As we approached Dam square the flower teams were still on set-up so we took a few photos and decided to go and get something to eat while we waited for the gates to open.
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| Orange tulips |
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| Pinks and lavenders |
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| Tulip close up |
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| Whites and yellows |
In Amsterdam, french fries (potato chips) are hugely popular and the Dutch go for something called patatje oorlog, translated as potato war. A strange conglomeration of peanut sauté, mayo and chopped onions heavily splattered over large golden and crispy fries! This is what we tried as we walked around the centre and it wasn't half bad.
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| Exploring a cheese shop! |
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| Snacking on patatje oorlog |
Back at Dam square the tulip gathering was in full swing and already thousands of people had lined up waiting for a chance to pick a bunch of tulips.
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| Rows of beautiful colours |
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| Tulip rainbow |
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| Peach and pinks |
The tulip, the unofficial national flower of the Netherlands was actually introduced to Europe by the Ottoman Empire in 1554. Now there are over 3000 different registered varieties of tulip across northern holland with incredible differences in colours, heights and shapes. In the square we could see peaches, buttery yellows, whites, lavenders, purples and pinks so deep they were nearly red.
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| Spare tulips |
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| Beautiful colours |
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| Kara with her tulips in Dam square |
As we walked to the end of the line, Kara leant over the gate to take a photo and a kind man thrust bunches of flowers her way from the other side! We felt so lucky and gave him a big "dank je wel" before taking some photos of our acquired iconic gift! With our flowers wrapped up in a bag we soon headed out of the city centre ready to warm up!
Tot siens,
John and Kara
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