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Netherlands, part 2

Continuation of our trip to Netherlands:  
Saturday was an interesting day for us.  We went to The Hague which has most of the official buildings in Netherlands but it was rainy and dead so we drove through it without getting out of the car and headed to Delft.  Delft is famous for their porcelain which I really wanted to see but Chris was a bit skeptical.  Delft also has a church where Dutch Royal family is buried.  Well, the church is not that interesting.  In fact, it was kind of creepy because it feels like you are walking on tombs because the floor is covered with names of the royal family.  Moreover, this church has a tower which is supposed to have this amazing view but kids under 6 are not allowed to climb up so none of us went.  The porcelain museum surprisingly was a hit with our family.  I think the key to that was the audio guide that was really engaging.  It also helped that we walked through the factory where the porcelain is made.  The museum shop was a little different from most though as it contained items costing from 4 euros to over 20,000 euros.  Anton's hand was held very tightly :)

Unfortunately, the plans for our last day (Sunday) had to be changed last minute since our plan was to go to amusement park but Lusha got sick overnight so we decided to go to Castle Ammersoyen.  Chris found it online and it had really good reviews of the tours.  It was constructed around 1350 as a defensive structure and is really cool.  We tried to time our arrival so that we wouldn't have to wait too long for a tour and that worked out well.  What did not work out so well is that Chris forgot that we are in Netherlands where people speak DUTCH and the tour was in DUTCH.  LOL   The tour guide was super nice though and tried to explain some stuff to us (did I mention that everybody speak exceptionally good English in Netherlands?) and engaged the kids.  They had a lot of hidden doors, holes in the floor,etc.  Overall, despite some language challenges we were all happy to have gone there.

Holland is amazing and we definitely want to come back and see more of it.  In case anybody is wondering - while we are exposing boys to a lot of historical sights which include a lot of World War II, we are avoiding Holocaust and all things related to that (concentration camps, Anne Frank House).  As we read the general guideline to start seeing things like that is 12 years old minimum.
Castle Ammersoyen







That's how we travel!
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