The Netherlands

Netherlands is very small that you can go through a tour of the country in just two days ! The best known places are of course Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam.

Amsterdam is a cool place to visit probably once. It is beautiful with those innumerous canals that run through the city and all those museums. It's a great place for an art lover but if you aren't one, then don't think of spending more than half a day here. Amsterdam is quite well known for their open red light districts. I think it is probably the only city where the red districts figure prominently in the "Places to see" list of a city ! Its better to arrive at Amsterdam by train for two reasons. One, Schipol Airport is far away from the city and second everything starts around the Centraal (hey,this ain't typo) station. The Circle tram 20 and the canal tour are the best ways to take a tour of the city.

Den Haag (The Hague) is only a 40 minute train ride from Amsterdam centraal. It is a neat little city and the best place to see here is Madurodam. Here is a miniature representation of the all the famous places in Netherlands and it is quite a fascinating experience ! Then there are the International court of justice and the Parliament house worth seeing.

The world famous tulip gardens are not too far away from Amsterdam but since we went during winter it was closed. Rotterdam is only 40 miles from Amsterdam but we decided against going there as we were quite tired after reaching the fag end of our Europe tour. It was time to take a flight back home !

The Dutch are warm, friendly and easily approachable. Another big plus is everybody speaks good English. I must say thanks to McDonalds for keeping our stomachs full with those crisp veggie burgers.