Amsterdam and the surrounding area of the Netherlands was SUCH a fun place! We really enjoyed our time there. In this guide, we have a few sections: Amsterdam, Flower Fields, and Haarlem

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is such a neat city! The city has TONS of canals and from my opinion, the best view of the city is from a boat on the canal -- I cannot recommend enough going on a boat tour and seeing the fun architecture from there!

In addition to having a lot of neat history (canals, the Anne Frank House, the Rijksmuseum), Amsterdam also has some fun foods to try! My favorites were the french fries and Stroopwaffels! There is also a really cute cafe called Corner Bakery that has crazy "monster shakes" -- so good! We also loved having a picnic on the edge of the canal with really yummy cheese and crackers we bought from a store called Markt!

Flower Fields

Since we were doing the Alexis May Flower Tour, the amazing tulips were one of the main reasons we came to the Netherlands! And let me say, they are AMAZING! The flower fields are about 45 minutes South of Amsterdam and not very far from the Amsterdam airport. The town at the center of all the flowers is called Lisse.

I have a few suggestions for visiting the flower fields -- first, having a car is really helpful! We were able to drive all around and it was so much fun just seeing flowers everywhere! Second, make sure to be respectful! There are a lot of people that are tempted to walk in the flowers, but make sure that you don't do that! There are some really nice farmers that you can talk to and they will give you permission or you can go to a farm that is designed to let people go take pictures there -- we went and visited the FAM Flower farm, which was amazing and was ran by the nicest people :)

There is also a big flower park called Keukenhof, which isn't the traditional fields you see, but has all the different kinds of flowers in one place. It's really neat, but can get very crowded. Make sure to not just go around Lisse, but also go visit the town of Hillegrom and the surrounding area -- there are flowers all over and they are so pretty.

Oh -- also important is to go at the right time of year! The best time is the last couple weeks of April! After that, they start picking the flowers.

Haarlem

We LOVE Haarlem -- this is a city right outside Amsterdam and we think it has so much to offer! It is so much less crowded than Amsterdam and has all the charm! We would so recommend coming to Haarlem!

We rode bikes around Haarlem, which was so much fun! Thank you Haarlem Bike Tours! You should all go check them out :) The city also has some other boat tour options and a fun little windmill and lots of cute cafes. If I were to move to the area, this is probably where I would want to be.

Zaanse Schans

This is the other area that is really cool! It has a ton of windmills and lots of fun little attractions -- we got there after it closed, but we saw some really cute sheep and watched sunset with the windmills, which was great :)

I hope you have an amazing time in the Netherlands!!