Country of Tulips

We’ll meet at 11 a.m. in the arrival hall of the central station in Leiden, a short train ride from Amsterdam. After lunch and a brief orientation meeting we’ll stroll through Leiden’s beautiful city center. We’ll “follow in the footsteps of Rembrandt” and visit St. Peters Church, where the American forefathers (The Pilgrims) prayed, before they departed to Delftshaven where they sailed on to Plymouth in Massachusetts. In the late afternoon we’ll transfer to our charming, four-star hotel in Noordwijkerhout, close to Holland’s famous tulip fields and bordering beautiful dunes. After fitting your bike, we’ll take an optional warm-up ride through the glorious tulip fields just inland from our hotel near the sand dunes. Tonight you’ll hear about the program for the next day and the routine for the rest of the week while enjoying your first scrumptious Dutch dinner in our hotel restaurant.

In the morning we’ll beat the crowds as we make an early visit to the Keukenhof, the world’s most spectacular flower garden with over 6 million bulbs, fantastically arranged amid fascinating outdoor sculptures, ponds, and fountains. Originally this was the 15th century kitchen garden of the Countess Jacoba van Beieren. You’ll certainly want to photograph this sensational display of color. After our Keukenhof visit, we’ll cycle north to Vogelenzang, stopping in one of the many tulip fields to take a group photo. After lunch, Herman van Amsterdam, a historian, writer, tulip expert, and local resident for over 30 years, will join us. He’ll bike with us for the afternoon, sharing the history of the tulip fields and the process of planting and harvesting bulbs. He’ll be able to answer many of the questions you might have about the local tulip industry. We’ll travel through the prosperous villages here, where we’ll admire private gardens in bloom and, of course, more tulip fields! Dinner is in our Hotel Restaurant. 

We’ll say goodbye to the tulip fields and depart Noordwijk, taking a bike path through more of Holland’s most lovely sand dunes (rolling hills!). We’ll pass through Katwijk, a lovely former fishing village, and continue on to the Wassenaarse Slag. Here we’ll leave the dunes and cycle past the elegant estates of Wassenaar. We’ll follow a winding bike path through lovely woods and finally arrive in front of King Willem Alexander’s private mansion. From here, we’ll bike on to the center of the Hague, where we’ll admire many handsome buildings of the Dutch Government and the official palace of the king. We’ll have a hearty Dutch pancake lunch before biking the twelve-kilometer distance from the Hague to Delft, where we’ll be staying right in the center of town. Our dinner tonight will be the famous Indonesian “rijstafel” which features a large assortment of dishes presented on warming plates right on our table. It’s a true feast and everyone always enjoys this night! After dinner we’ll go on a short orientation tour of Delft so you can imagine what you’d like to do on your own the following morning.

In the morning we take a canal boat with local Guide. After the tour the skipper will drop us at the Royal Blue Delft. A Delft pottery factory where the world-renowned “Delft Blue” china is created. In the afternoon you’ll be free to visit the historic center of Delft by foot. You might like to visit the New Church (completed in 1380) where William of Orange is buried, or climb the steps to the bell tower where you’ll have a wonderful view over the red tiled roofs of Delft. You can also browse the town’s numerous shops and boutiques. For lunch, if you’re brave enough, you could try the famous “new herring” at a six-hundred-year-old fish stand near the magnificent town hall. Or you could join us for an optional bike ride through charming Dutch countryside to Schipluiden, a quaint little village southwest of Delft, and then continue on to the Nieuwe Waterweg. This is the major connection between Rotterdam, the world’s number one harbor, and the North Sea. From the terrace of a Waterweg restaurant you’ll have a marvelous view on a parade of barges, riverboats, and huge ocean cargo ships. Dinner will be on your own tonight in one of Delft’s many fine restaurants.

Our longest biking day will take us through the Westland, a fertile area full of greenhouses where the delicious tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers that Holland is famous for are grown. We’ll continue through this abundant green area of Holland along the tiny River Rotte, which has recently become a nature and wildlife reservation. On our way we’ll cruise by classic windmills and many cows, sheep, and lambs grazing peacefully. Later we’ll cycle through the “mecca of the shrub growing industry” and arrive in our private hotel, with a well-known gourmet restaurant, beautifully situated on an idyllic lake in Noorden.

Today we’ll follow the bucolic Jaagpad route through the surroundings of Noorden that the Dutch call the “Green Heart of Holland” and enjoy some of the best biking in the Netherlands. We’ll follow a curvy, picturesque peat river, the Meije, a photographer’s paradise with small farms and wildflower meadows all along its banks. We’ll be biking along typical Dutch canals, passing by large polders and beautiful lakes. Dutch farmers, who dug the peat to burn as fuel centuries ago, artificially created these lakes. We’ll stop for lunch and toast your Dutch biking accomplishments with a good Heineken or, we have to admit, a very superb Belgian Palm Beer! If you don’t need the time to pack for your trip home, you might rent a quiet electro boat this afternoon and visit the conservation area on the other side of the lake, which is also a bird and wildflower preserve, unique in all of Holland. Our farewell dinner will be in the candlelit restaurant of our hotel, where the food is lovingly prepared and beautifully presented especially for this occasion.

We will arrange multiple transfers to Schiphol Airport for your flight home or the next leg of your European vacation. We recommend getting a flight that leaves after 11 a.m., however, if you need to schedule an earlier flight that’s okay and we will arrange an appropriate transfer for you.