Bob's Bike and Beer Blog: Thursday, April 28, 2016

Today has been another day of mixed weather. It started cold, rainy and windy. I took the bus to the Keukenhof, the world famous tulip gardens near Lisse, Nederlands. Translated that means the kitchen garden. That is a major understatement. The gardens are enormous covering many acres and having over 7 millions bulbs planted in them. Even in the rain it was a photographers delight. There were so many colors a dozen rainbows could not contain them. I took many pictures and will post a few of them. I am sure a visit to the gardens has inspired many home gardeners to return home and plant tulips and other bulb flowers. If you ever get a chance to visit the Nederlands during tulip season, do plan a trip to the kitchen garden. After my visit to Keukenhop i returned to downtown Amsterdam for some shopping. I was very surprised by how quickly they had cleaned up after what I know was a major mess after the King's Day celebration. The street were clean and the streetcars (trams) were running again. Actually the streets were very full of shoppers, tourists and workers going from place to place. It was just like I remembered Amsterdam from my visit in 2009. All is well and tomorrow I will ride again for about 20 km in whatever the weather will be to my original hotel and begin the process of preparing to come home. That is packing the bicycle and finish my shopping.