The long awaited trip to spend some sister/girl(fun!!) time with each other finally happened.
We decided of all the countries in Europe to go to Belgium famous for its Chocolates and Beer. Why Belgium, well I had this book lying around gathering dust for 2 years - Lonely planet Trip to Belgium which promptly prompted us to take that step. So we went ahead and booked our tickets and Hotel stay in Brussels and decided to make day trips to wherever we may wish to visit hence forth.
And we started doing our research into getting the visa, planning our itinerary we stumbled upon the Keukenhof Gardens in Holland. This garden is supposedly very famous in Europe for its sprawling Tulips fields and various kinds of bulb flowers. Fortunately for us, the weekend we were in that area was the weekend the Garden is in full bloom. About 1 million visitors visit this Garden during that weekend. So of course we decided we have to stop by.
To give you guys an idea, for those of you who have seen Silsila
in the song "Dekha ak kawab to yeh silsile hua" is filmed in Keukenhof Gardens.
During our 5 day trip we managed to visit the 4 main cities of Belgium: Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent and Bruges and in Holland: Amsterdam and Keukenhof Gardens.
So it was quite packed, yet we didn't feel that hurried.
Brussels is a beautiful city with some nice churches and 18th century architecture. In the city center they have the famous square called the Grand Place or Groote Market. Grand Place is surrounded by ancient buildings very ornate and some really nice restaurants in those building. The place is bustling with a long of visitors throughout the day. Right by Grand place is the famous statue of Menekin Pis. It has some nice museums (Comic strip center, Lace museum etc amongst a few we visited), gardens(Jardin le Petit Sablon, Botanique are the ones we visited) and Mini Europe.
Mini Europe is a sort of like an amusement park, with the amusement being miniature landmarks/historical sights/buildings/bridges etc build to exact proportions from various countries in Europe. To give you some examples, you will see the Buckingham palace, the Big Ben, the Windmills in a village in Holland, the Doges palace in Venice, the tower of Pisa etc etc.
Ghent is an old town, very charming, has canals running in the city, the famous Cathedral of St Bavo that showcases the painting "Adoration of the Mystic Lamb" by Jan and Hubert van Eyck (brothers). A city you walk around to see its splendid architecture.
Bruges, this was our favorite place, popularly known as the Venice of the North. Those of you who take a trip to Europe and have the Shengen visa, do make an effort to visit this town, simply put, it is heavenly, a very old preserved city.
In the 13th and 14th century Bruges was an important international trading center. Traders from all over the then known world came to the city to sell their products to each other and to buy Flemish cloth.
In the early 15th century, Bruges lost all its trade to the new harbor in Antwerp for various reason, amongst them being the silting of the Zwin river which was the main harbor. It became a very poor town and hence was never invaded. This is why the old part of Bruges is preserved from the 15th century. The city has a wide canal system where you can take a lovely ride. There are swans all around the parks, ancient churches, again a grand square and of course the ancient architecture is such a joy to witness.
We had a wonderful time their.
Antwerp, is a more modern city, the diamond center of the World. We spend an evening going around Antwerp, it was very pleasant. Walked around the old town, with some churches in the backdrop, has some nice Australian (yes go figure!) ice cream. All in all, it was short and sweet.
Keukenhof gardens was the highlight of the trip. Never have I seen so many flowers in so many shades in such a pleasant 21c weather, just bursting with sunlight and distant sounds of thousands of people awing at the sight of such beauty. It was serene. We spend a few hours their on our way to Amsterdam. No words can do justice to the scene, I will put some picture up for everyone to get a glimpse of it.
Amsterdam is infamous for a lot of things as we all know, amongst the famous ones will be some 15 odd museums, the canals and of course the lovely architecture and historic sights.
We decided to spend time in the Van Gogh Museum. The permanent collection features the works of Vincent van Gogh, and the works of other artists. Van Gogh's work is organized chronologically into five periods, each representing a different phase of his life and work: The Netherlands, Paris, Arles, Saint -Remy and Auvers-sur-Oise. It was an education for us, we of course did not know much about Van Gogh before this. You can get the audio guides in the museum to help you understand a lot of his much appreciated works.
After that we spend the rest of the few hours in Amsterdam walking the streets by the canals, looking at the people having fun, we also walked past the Anne Frank house (the lines were too long for us to visit inside). It is indeed a very romantic place to go with your significant other.
Holland in general is lush green, majority of the country constitutes farmlands. There many windmills around, some modern, but the original windmills are a sight to see. On our way back and forth from Antwerp to Amsterdam we some of them up-close on the highways.
Well we are back now, with some wonderful memories, lots of pictures, a few boxes of chocolates and strong desire to take Anurag there some day.....
We decided of all the countries in Europe to go to Belgium famous for its Chocolates and Beer. Why Belgium, well I had this book lying around gathering dust for 2 years - Lonely planet Trip to Belgium which promptly prompted us to take that step. So we went ahead and booked our tickets and Hotel stay in Brussels and decided to make day trips to wherever we may wish to visit hence forth.
And we started doing our research into getting the visa, planning our itinerary we stumbled upon the Keukenhof Gardens in Holland. This garden is supposedly very famous in Europe for its sprawling Tulips fields and various kinds of bulb flowers. Fortunately for us, the weekend we were in that area was the weekend the Garden is in full bloom. About 1 million visitors visit this Garden during that weekend. So of course we decided we have to stop by.
To give you guys an idea, for those of you who have seen Silsila
in the song "Dekha ak kawab to yeh silsile hua" is filmed in Keukenhof Gardens.
During our 5 day trip we managed to visit the 4 main cities of Belgium: Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent and Bruges and in Holland: Amsterdam and Keukenhof Gardens.
So it was quite packed, yet we didn't feel that hurried.
Brussels is a beautiful city with some nice churches and 18th century architecture. In the city center they have the famous square called the Grand Place or Groote Market. Grand Place is surrounded by ancient buildings very ornate and some really nice restaurants in those building. The place is bustling with a long of visitors throughout the day. Right by Grand place is the famous statue of Menekin Pis. It has some nice museums (Comic strip center, Lace museum etc amongst a few we visited), gardens(Jardin le Petit Sablon, Botanique are the ones we visited) and Mini Europe.
Mini Europe is a sort of like an amusement park, with the amusement being miniature landmarks/historical sights/buildings/bridges etc build to exact proportions from various countries in Europe. To give you some examples, you will see the Buckingham palace, the Big Ben, the Windmills in a village in Holland, the Doges palace in Venice, the tower of Pisa etc etc.
Ghent is an old town, very charming, has canals running in the city, the famous Cathedral of St Bavo that showcases the painting "Adoration of the Mystic Lamb" by Jan and Hubert van Eyck (brothers). A city you walk around to see its splendid architecture.
Bruges, this was our favorite place, popularly known as the Venice of the North. Those of you who take a trip to Europe and have the Shengen visa, do make an effort to visit this town, simply put, it is heavenly, a very old preserved city.
In the 13th and 14th century Bruges was an important international trading center. Traders from all over the then known world came to the city to sell their products to each other and to buy Flemish cloth.
In the early 15th century, Bruges lost all its trade to the new harbor in Antwerp for various reason, amongst them being the silting of the Zwin river which was the main harbor. It became a very poor town and hence was never invaded. This is why the old part of Bruges is preserved from the 15th century. The city has a wide canal system where you can take a lovely ride. There are swans all around the parks, ancient churches, again a grand square and of course the ancient architecture is such a joy to witness.
We had a wonderful time their.
Antwerp, is a more modern city, the diamond center of the World. We spend an evening going around Antwerp, it was very pleasant. Walked around the old town, with some churches in the backdrop, has some nice Australian (yes go figure!) ice cream. All in all, it was short and sweet.
Keukenhof gardens was the highlight of the trip. Never have I seen so many flowers in so many shades in such a pleasant 21c weather, just bursting with sunlight and distant sounds of thousands of people awing at the sight of such beauty. It was serene. We spend a few hours their on our way to Amsterdam. No words can do justice to the scene, I will put some picture up for everyone to get a glimpse of it.
Amsterdam is infamous for a lot of things as we all know, amongst the famous ones will be some 15 odd museums, the canals and of course the lovely architecture and historic sights.
We decided to spend time in the Van Gogh Museum. The permanent collection features the works of Vincent van Gogh, and the works of other artists. Van Gogh's work is organized chronologically into five periods, each representing a different phase of his life and work: The Netherlands, Paris, Arles, Saint -Remy and Auvers-sur-Oise. It was an education for us, we of course did not know much about Van Gogh before this. You can get the audio guides in the museum to help you understand a lot of his much appreciated works.
After that we spend the rest of the few hours in Amsterdam walking the streets by the canals, looking at the people having fun, we also walked past the Anne Frank house (the lines were too long for us to visit inside). It is indeed a very romantic place to go with your significant other.
Holland in general is lush green, majority of the country constitutes farmlands. There many windmills around, some modern, but the original windmills are a sight to see. On our way back and forth from Antwerp to Amsterdam we some of them up-close on the highways.
Well we are back now, with some wonderful memories, lots of pictures, a few boxes of chocolates and strong desire to take Anurag there some day.....