Benelux 2015: Windmills and Cheese.

Today has been a snowy day in Belgium, which is quite a rare event over here, but finally it feels a bit like winter! :) Tomorrow I'm already flying back to Budapest (and then trying to get to Ukraine before midnight), but as you can see I'm quite behind with my blog. ;) But I'll surely catch up and try not to bore my readers to death will all the travel stories! :D

I've been in Belgium for the last 10 days, but in fact my trips to Belgium always include short visits to other countries. Over here "going abroad" has a completely different meaning and feeling than in Ukraine. First of all, Belgium is a small country, so if you keep on driving from Brussels for about 2 hours in any direction, you'll most likely already be abroad. Then there are no borders as such, because it's the Schengen zone, so a trip abroad doesn't feel like a huge event. Each time I come here, I travel together with my dad both to places in Belgium and in the neighboring countries. This time we've visited The Netherlands and Luxembourg, therefore I've decided to call this journey "Benelux 2015". :) 

And I'll start with The Netherlands, because I've been there for... 3 times within the last week! I went there twice with my dad and once I went Training on my own to meet my Dutch friend Tessa. :) Yet today I'm going to tell you about 3 places which I've visited with my dad last Saturday: Kinderdijk, Gouda and Delft.

Windmills in Kinderdijk

What can I say about Kinderdijk? It's just amazing and it's probably one of the most beautiful places in The Netherlands! The village is known for 19 old windmills, most of which were built in the 18th century and which were used to keep the water out of the polder. Windmills and polders - that's so stereotypically Dutch! :) The windmills and their reflections in the water looked just stunning in the morning sun. The museum is unfortunately closed during the winter season, but just having a walk there was worth traveling all the way! 

Me and windmills! :)

In my mind The Netherlands are a highly urbanized city, so it was really refreshing and interesting to see some small villages with old houses and more windmills on the way. Once we even had to take a local ferry, because there was no bridge between the villages on opposite banks of Lek river. Some half an hour later we were already in Gouda, which is obviously the home town of the famous cheese. :) 

One of the old streets in Gouda.

To be honest, I felt a bit overwhelmed in the town center, as there was quite a big market with cheese, fish and other traditional Dutch stuff and I can feel really sociophobic in such places... :/ In the end I didn't even try the local Gouda cheese... But I enjoyed walking down the old streets and visiting the Gouda cathedral, which is famous for old stain glass windows and is also known as the longest church in The Netherlands. 

Inside the Gouda cathedral.

After the lunch we went to another old town named Delft, which is located between The Hague and Rotterdam. It's known for the beautiful canals in the historic center and for the blue pottery. I have to write something very ignorant from time to time ;), so I'll admit that most of Dutch towns look similar to me. Of course, there's something special about each of them, but most of them share a similar architecture style and therefore I tend to mix them up in my head. If you asked me, which Dutch cities and towns I've visited in the last 10 years, I probably wouldn't be able to name all of them. Well, maybe it's because it's usually my dad who plans the trips and he often tries to visit several places in one day, but I feel totally ignorant nevertheless!

The town hall in Delft.

I think I'll remember Delft as one of the typical Dutch towns, but I must tell it's a really special one and it felt much more cozy than Gouda, even if both towns are of a similar size. We had a lovely time walking along the canals and my dad had his favorite "Dutch sushi"! :D Are you wondering what it could be? ;) Well, it's raw herring with onion and my dad really loves it, while I doubt I'd ever dare to try it! Then we tried to go to a coffee shop (isn't it nice when you can go to such place with your own father?) ;), but unfortunately - or maybe fortunately for both of us - it was closed. :)

One of the canals in Delft.

Then it was time to go back to Belgium, but luckily I already knew that I'd come back to The Netherlands in just two days to meet my friend. :) But I'm going to write about my international Training next time. Of course that'll only happen in case I survive tomorrow's flight, because I still can't help being a bit nervous about it. Hopefully on Monday I'll be already at home with a lot of received mail and ready to share more travel experiences! :)