Public Transportation to Working Windmills on a Day Trip from Amsterdam

The historic working windmills at Zaanse Schans are an easy day trip by train or bus from Amsterdam. Restaurants, museums, and traditional workshops are further attractions.

photo credit: gadongen76

Zaanse Schans is a very popular day-trip destination from Amsterdam. The main attractions here are the historic, working windmills but further historic buildings organized like an open-air museum are further attractions. Easy public transportation (bus or train) as well as numerous tour bus excursion trips make for fast transportation from Amsterdam.

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See Historical Mills and Houses near Amsterdam in the Netherlands

The historic working windmills and open-air museum-like village at Zaanse Schans in Zaandam are a pleasant day-trip destination from Amsterdam in North Holland, the Netherlands.

photo credit: =ChevalieR=

Historic windmills are of course no longer part of the industrial infrastructure of modern-day Holland but images of a turning windmill still form a major ingredient of tourist interest in the Netherlands. Windmills are scattered through the Netherlands but the two largest collections of historical working windmills are at Zaanse Schans and at Kinderdijk. The windmills at Zaanse Schans is within easy reach of Amsterdam and makes a great self-guided day-trip or tourbus excursion from the Dutch capital. The nineteen windmills at Kinderdijk near Dordrecht and Rotterdam are included on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage list and a popular day-trip from Dutch cities.

Zaanse Schans is by far the easier to reach from Amsterdam, especially when using public transportation. The additional buildings and museums at Zaanse Schans make the town a more interesting destination than Kinderdijk where the windmills – even though UNESCO listed and more in number – are the only real attractions.

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Great Stays in Alphen aan den Rijn in South Holland, Netherlands

The Van Der Valk Hotel Avifauna in Alphen aan den Rijn offers great deals on accommodation, free access to the bird park play area and easy access to sightseeing spots.

Van der Valk Hotel Avifauna in Alphen aan den Rijn in the Netherlands is a comfortable hotel with great offers and attraction to especially families with small children. The hotel also seems popular with business travelers. Rooms are large with spacious bathrooms and often great views of the adjacent Vogelpark Avifauna bird park and the Rhine River.

The Avifauna Hotel is typical of Dutch hotels of the latter half of the twentieth century. The Avifauna Hotel is a large four story building with a huge, sloping roof so it does not in any way resemble an office block or inner city high-rise building. Free parking is available right next to the building in an almost motel-like style.

Rather oddly, the reception is not in the same building as the hotel rooms. The reception is in a small building in between the hotel, the Vogelpark Avifauna bird park, and the large restaurant building.

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Day Tripping to the World’s Largest Bulbs Park in Lisse, the Netherlands

Keukenhof near Lisse is the world’s largest flower garden park. It is an easy daytrip from Amsterdam, Schiphol Airport, and other cities in Holland to see the tulips and other flowers.

photo credit: JackVersloot

Keukenhof in the Netherlands claims to be the world’s largest flower park. Each year, Keukenhof is open only two months in spring each year to show off the best of Dutch tulips, crocuses, narcissus (daffodils), and other bulb flowers. The park is an easy day-trip destination from Amsterdam, Schiphol Airport, and most cities in Holland. It is popular with visitors of all age groups – from families with small children to tour groups of pensioners that tend to recall that the park was better on a most memorable visit x years ago.

50 Years of Keukenhof near Lisse in 2009

In 2009, Keukenhof will celebrate its sixtieth anniversary with a special theme year: USA, New Amsterdam/New York. It is four centuries since Henry Hudson founded New Amsterdam, the city that we now know as New York. Top Dutch horticulturists will use 25,000 flower bulbs to create a Statue of Liberty at Keukenhof 2009.

• In 2009, Keukenhof will be open from March 19 to May 21.

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