Amsterdam and Haarlem

I chose an Airbnb on the outskirts of town because of its proximity to my Monday morning destination: the Royal FloraHolland flower auction. I've heard it's the largest building in Europe and to put its size in perspective, the warehouse has three local bus stops on the perimeter of the building! The public can tour a portion of it via an overhead walkway and see a glimpse of the action. Part of me loved seeing the variety of cut flowers and the whole place smelled like a florist shop, but I was equally enthralled by the logistics of what I was seeing as flowers came in from around the world (including the Netherlands), were bid on, and were sorted to the various buyers before being shipped across Europe. One of the things I learned was that in a Dutch auction, it starts at the highest potential price and the first one to bid wins. At any given moment there are two items up for bid simultaneously to keep things moving, and because the warehouse is so large there's an overhead tram system for the flowers faster in addition to all the carts driven on the warehouse floor. It was mesmerizing to see them in action.

In this part of the warehouse, the carts moved along automated tracks to the bidding area; note the bicycle parking for getting around inside the warehouse.

Once the flowers on a cart is bid on, it's divided up based on the buyers and workers drive all or parts of it to the winners. 

Delivering buckets of flowers after the bidding to the "neighborhoods" of buyers. Once a mixed cart is full it's moved to another area of the warehouse for transport.

Before leaving, they had a green screen where you could insert yourself into the action, and I couldn't resist.

Fun with the green screen. 

It's like I'm in the auction room. 

How flower distribution would've looked decades ago.

The auction happens so early that I still got to the city center just as things were opening up. I rented a bike for the day and headed to the nearby town of Haarlem. It was about 11 miles, almost entirely flat, and other than my phone's navigation occasionally disagreeing with the signs, was a mostly straight shot along bike paths and bike lanes.

waterfront in Haarlem

As I arrived at the city center, I was greeted with a performance on their church's bell tower.

De Adriaan windmill

I biked around a little, enjoying the charming architecture before taking a train back to Amsterdam for my last stop: the Rijksmuseum. It's the national art and history museum, and had a Rembrandt exhibit that was fantastic in honor of the 350th anniversary of his death. His etchings were incredible, and I appreciated the thought he put into his biblical subjects.

The Rijksmuseum was designed by the same architect as the central train station.

The art history library

Rembrandt used himself as a model to hone his skills at capturing facial expressions; this was one of my favorites.

Christ in Gethsemane; note the disciples sleeping in the lower left corner as the mob in the background comes to take him.

Standing trial

The Good Samaritan

Woman at the well

"The Hundred Guilder" etching of Matthew 19 (nicknamed because it was so commercially successful)

Sketch of Christ washing the disciples' feet

Peter betraying Christ (who is in the background, looking back at him)

Not sure why this wealthy couple decided their wedding portrait required two canvases instead of one, but it means the paintings today belong to separate collections. It was a big deal to see them displayed together.

...such a big deal that the museum had these large playmobil versions of them on display.

I tried to soak in as much of the museum as possible before it closed, and afterward biked along the canals before returning to the airport for my flight back to Paris.

Canal in the Jordaan neighborhood

It wasn't too late when I landed at Orly in Paris, but by the time I reunited with my big backpack in central Paris and travelled to Versailles, it was another late night and sleep came easily.

Tiptoeing through Amsterdam's Tulips

For once, daylight savings worked in my favor. I managed to sleep most of the seven-hour drive to Amsterdam and it was just starting to get light as we arrived. I headed to the city center to do another Rick Steves podcast walking tour in the nearly-deserted streets.

Train station, designed by the same architect as their national art museum.

Koninklijk Paleis
 (one of the royal palaces that actually started out as a town hall)

Begijnhof, an enclosed courtyard originally built for a Catholic sisterhood that is still occupied by single women. 

One of the famous canals

After waffling on which ward to visit and how to get there, I figured out that the easiest plan would actually be to go like a local: I rented a bike and pedaled there. I arrived with just enough time to change in the bathroom, and they had a headset for English translation already waiting for me. Most of the people sitting in the back section were in my situation, and the chapel was even equipped with a small booth for translators. When it came time to sing the hymns, though, they did something I've never experienced anywhere else: they announced the hymn and gave its page number in the Dutch and English hymnal, and even the Spanish one, and encouraged everyone to sing in their respective language! It actually sounded less chaotic than I would have expected.

The only chapel I've seen with a stork's nest on the spire.

In front of the meetinghouse.

More cars than bikes.

After church I changed and pedaled back to the city center at a more relaxed pace before heading to the main reason I was in the Netherlands: Keukenhof. When I learned about the trip to Paris, the thought of being in Europe in the springtime immediately made me think of going to see tulips in the Netherlands. Keukenhof is ground zero for this: cultivated gardens surrounded by fields that grow the blooms commercially. Upon arrival, I rented another bike to see a bit of the fields before entering the gardens. It was still a little early in the season so most of the fields were actually hyacinths and daffodils; it was still gorgeous. I opted for the shorter loop so I could maximize my time in the garden, and spent the rest of the day wandering the grounds with a smile I couldn't wipe off my face. They carefully cultivated plots with different varieties of flowers in harmonious color palettes that were timed to bloom in stages, grew homogeneous beds at different heights to give the illusion of overlapping stripes of color, and if that weren't enough had indoor pavilions with different floral themes. One had an orchid show with a hippie theme ("flower power"); another was full of cut freesias and table displays; and an education center showed how new varieties are developed, the elusive quest to breed a black tulip, and the "Tulip Mania" speculative bubble that burst in 1637. The biggest pavilion was full of indoor plots of tulips so we could see hundreds of varieties before it was warm enough for them to bloom outdoors.

Daffodils

Hyacinths

Entrance to Keukenhof

Orchid show with a hippie theme

Some of the plantings, displaying a variety of colors and designed to stretch out the blooming times.

Local footwear

Bohemian table setting

I loved the careful planning with the height of the different flowers

During the "Tulip Mania" in the 1630s, the flowers were such status symbols that the wealthy had porcelain vases like this just to show them off. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how much a tulip bulb was worth at the peak of the bubble.

Some of the tulips were so large that I had to get in there for scale.

The tulip pavilion

Windmill at Keukenhof

Strolling the grounds at Keukenhof after most of the crowds had left.

The gardens were large so I had to keep walking in an attempt to see it all, and once I finally made it to my Airbrb that night it wasn't long before I collapsed into bed.

My Tour de France, Day 2

I was eager for another early start to beat the traffic and crowds, but grateful my hostess insisted on waiting until the bakery opened so I could have a fresh croissant with my hot chocolate. Breakfast of French Champions!

My Airbnb was a renovated farmhouse in the traditional long style of the region. 

I attempted to ask her suggestion of where to buy cheap gas and was directed to a nearby place that was easy to find; unfortunately, they were out of fuel. Thankfully I found another place on my way there, and by taking a road slightly less travelled was greeted by my first sight of the Mont appearing to float above a field of flowers. I had seen pictures of Mont-Saint-Michel before, but had never processed how big it could be. Compared to the flat farmland, this was huge and visible for miles.

My first glimpse of the Mont

On the bridge to Mont Saint Michel (at low tide)

The narrow street pilgrims walk up to the abbey at the top

Looking from the Mont back towards mainland France (at high tide, Mont Saint Michel is an island). I think it's Normandy to the left of the river, Brittany to the right.

Looking from the Mont towards the ocean—if you look closely, those dark specks are guided tours of the tidal flats.

In part to maintain that effect, they require parking over a mile away and taking a shuttle to the entrance. I arrived relatively early and had time to wander on the walls of the old town before the shops opened, watching the tour groups go out on the flats to make the most of low tide. The abbey is on top of the rock, and I opted for the free tour in English rather than an audio guide. It meant waiting a little, but I lucked out with a guide who told interesting stories and helped me appreciate what I was seeing. A bishop received a vision to build this place, and if it hadn’t been popular enough for honoring Saint Michael, its resistance of the English during the Norman conquest made it a symbol of France. Anyone and everyone came on pilgrimage, making it wealthy. After all the destruction of WW2 it was amazing to see it intact but there were two major events that affected how we saw it today. The first was the French Revolution, which kicked out the nuns and friars and converted the abbey into a prison, removing all the beautiful tiles, glass, furnishing, etc. in the process. The second was related to WW2. While it was never bombed because it wasn’t near anything strategic, all the historic documents that it used to hold had been moved to Saint Lo for safekeeping; that town was significantly strategic and unfortunately was heavily damaged during the Battle of Normandy, destroying all the documents that could’ve been used for restoration. Rather than falsely represent the past, they chose to leave the concrete bare and the windows plain. By the time the tour ended the entire island was full of tourists, and it was hard to imagine what daily life is like for those who choose to live here. I went down the main street this time, seeing overpriced meals and lots of souvenir shops. 

The entrance to the chapel—the courtyard where I was standing used to be inside the church; after a fire they reduced the length and built this new front. 

The nave of the chapel

This part of the abbey is referred to as "Merveille" (Marvel); rather than have the areas dedicated to body, mind, and spirit adjacent to each other, on this tiny island they built up. 

The cloister of the abbey is on top; they are in the process of restoring a garden in the center.

Detail of the intricate limestone carving in the cloister.

The walls would have been richly painted with colorful stained glass windows.

This frieze depicts the archangel Michael telling the bishop to build this abbey. The legend is that when the bishop ignored the first appearances, the archangel pushed his thumb into the bishop's head so he'd take it seriously.

When the abbey was converted into a prison, this giant wheel was how they brought in supplies. It is attached to a sledge to carry goods up the steep walls. Prisoners wanted to be inside the wheel because they got extra rations.

Before leaving, I took one quick but cautious lap around the island in the mud flats, which was pretty slick at times and infamous for quick tides. I opted to walk back rather than wait in line and enjoy a beautiful day before hopping the car so start the drive. There was no direct route, so I drove most of it on side roads through rolling green hills of cattle and sheep grazing next to ancient homes. I kept wondering where they keep the ugly bits.

Side view of the Mont from the mud flats.

My last stop felt like another cliché: I visited Pierre in his village in the Loire Valley and we ate a baguette and meats from the local charcuterie. I met Pierre when he was based in our office and when he moved back to France to open a dairy farm, joked about an open invite to visit; I decided to take him up on it. The village was small but cute, and in addition to trying the award-winning meat shop, had a walking tour of the beautiful village next door.

Pierre and the sign for the local charcuterie.

Ancient bridge in the neighboring village.

The church near the bridge had medieval murals throughout.

Sampling local delicacies.

There aren’t a lot of job opportunities based in this area (he works at a place with several other remote workers), but I did find out I could actually afford a home here. Again, my time was limited before I had to start the drive back to Paris, but it was worth the brief visit. Thankfully the traffic was light and the protests were non-existent. I was in a bit of a race against the clock to return my car, drop off my big backpack in central Paris, and get to the bus station in another part of town. This all happened but required going in places where I felt mildly unsafe at that late hour and barely making my bus. The overnight bus was not only the cheapest way to Amsterdam, but saved me paying for a hotel for the night.