King's Day Trip 2025 Part 5 - Tulips and Zandvoort

While King's Day was the main reason for our trip to Amsterdam in spring 2025, tulip season was a close second. The weather was gorgeous when we made our trek to Keukenhof. There's only two months out of the year when you can enjoy this attraction, and now that I've been there, I agree with the hype. It is breathtaking. I know my pictures don't do it justice, so you'll just have to go see them in person! 

Keukenhof is humongous, and you can definitely spend a whole day there. Over 7 million flower bulbs are planted each year, with 800 different varieties of tulips. I was in awe at the colors of tulips I had never seen before. We grabbed lunch there and took a million photos, and then rented bikes (in true Dutch fashion) to head to our next destination. 

After a bit of a detour because we got lost, we ended up at the Tulip Experience. Compared to Keukenhof, this was a much smaller quantity of tulips, but it was cool because you could walk between all the rows of tulips and get a more up-close experience. We definitely got some amazing photo ops there.

Because this was our last day in the Netherlands, we didn't just want to go back to our hotel for the night. I mentioned to my sister that the city of Zandvoort, where an F1 track is, was somewhat on the way back to Amsterdam, so she was game with checking it out. With my husband being a huge F1 fan, I knew a race would be happening there later in the year, but thought it might be deserted in the spring. I wasn't sure how close we'd be able to get to the track, but I figured it was worth a shot. We parked nearby and started walking, looking for some kind of viewpoint. We walked for a while and thought we might have to give up, when we spotted a fence with an open gate. I didn't know what the sign said, but the gate was open, so to me that meant "welcome!" To our amusement, there was actually a motorcycle race going on! We had a pretty great vantage point. We watched some of the action and I sent pics back to my husband.  

It was time for dinner, so we decided to eat in Zandvoort before our final drive back to Amsterdam. The timing could not have been more perfect. We found a restaurant facing the North Sea and got to enjoy our Mexican food as the sun set over the water. What a picturesque ending to our magical trip! 

King's Day Trip 2025 Part 4 - Delft

This day we drove from Amsterdam to Delft so we could meet up with a friend. She was gracious enough to travel multiple hours by train to see us! 

If you're Dutch, you likely have a lot of blue Delft pottery in your household. My sister and I had never been to this town, so we enjoyed walking through the city, visiting Delft shops, learning a little history, and of course catching up with our friend over lunch.  

Of course we wore blue!

King's Day Trip 2025 Part 3 - King's Day

Today was the day! We were so excited to don all our orange Dutch gear and join the crowds at the King's Day celebrations in Amsterdam. 

It was mayhem! The canals were packed and the streets were full too. People were selling alcohol out of bags and coolers, and there were little parties grouped around where someone was playing music. My cousin and his girlfriend were there, so they helped us negotiate drink prices in Dutch! Finding a bathroom wasn't much of a problem for guys, because there were public urinals placed throughout, but ladies had to stand in very long lines at restaurants or stores. Thankfully my niece had friends in the city, so we had access to their nearby apartment when we needed a bathroom break. Without that luxury, I think it would have been quite a different experience for us! The friends loaded up a speaker and we made our way into a public area to drink, dance, and laugh! 

 

Your girl found an orange traffic cone and used it as a megaphone, which was a big hit for the passersby. Many a person offered money to buy it from us. Haha.

What a fun experience, to revel with the hundreds of thousands of people in the city, all coming together for celebration, without a care in the world. We ended the night back at our niece's friend's apartment, just sharing stories and laughing. I couldn't have asked for a better day!

King's Day Trip 2025 Part 1 - Gouda

My niece mentioned she would be traveling to Amsterdam for King's Day this year, so my sister and I decided to check out flights and see if we could make it work too. As luck would have it, we found some flights and the timing fit into our work schedules, so we started making plans! King's Day is a national holiday in the Netherlands that celebrates the King's birthday, and parties/festivals are held throughout the country. The biggest one happens in Amsterdam and there are usually more than 500,000 visitors coming into the city that day. Sounded like a fun party! I'm always going to jump at the chance to spend more time in the Netherlands, and considering it was also tulip season, it was an easy decision. 

We stayed at Hotel Zoku, which is a funky apartment-style hotel in the middle of the city. The rooms were eclectic, but had little kitchen setups and were fine for just the two of us. 

We walked around the city for a while after checking in, and made a stop at Stroopperie to get a sweet treat.

The next day we made our way to the city of Gouda to check out the cheese market. What was going on in the main square was mainly ceremonial, but you could go into stores and see the vast display of cheese varieties. We did some taste testing and wished we could have brought back all the different varieties of Gouda home! We also saw a vending machine for Stroopwafels, which made sense because Gouda is the birthplace of this famous Dutch dessert.

On the way back to Amsterdam, we stopped in Utrecht to do some shopping and visit with our cousin's girlfriend who worked at a store there. Back at the hotel, we went up to the convenient bar/restaurant on the top floor, with a beautiful, lush walkway leading to it. We sat at a booth that had a funny message next to it.

We laughed at that and wondered how often it happened. Well, sure enough, within a few minutes, the alarm went off and their staff jumped into action. We moved out of the way so they could reach their walkie talkies and safety vests. Apparently someone had left something on the stove and it caused the smoke alarm to go off. Glad to see the staff had a plan to handle that, and there was no fire, so we were able to get back to our dinner quickly!