Europe Bus Tour-2010 - Belgium-Netherlands

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London to Belgium
After an excellent breakfast in Hilton, we boarded the same bus. Our entire luggage were packed and loaded. We bought batteries and water bottle. First significant attraction was the Euro-tunnel. There are 3 different lines. Folkestone is where we depart. The whole bus goes into a loading dock that is covered. There are 2 feet of space on either side for people to walk. Windows are minimum. Once the train is in the tunnel, you cannot see anything outside. In 25 minutes you are out. Once you are in France, you will have to move your clock up by an hour. We drove through France countryside. I could sport some vineyards on the way. It was a beautiful countryside. After entering Belgium, we stopped for lunch. Here we are on our own. This is a gas and food place.P1 talked to the guy to get us all a veggie patty burger. We paid about 40 Euros for this food.
We drove straight to Brussels. We visited the Grand palace. It is in a rectangle with tall palace like buildings on all 4 sides. It looked like a dream world. We visited the “Manneken Pis” statue. It is a statue of a small boy taking leak. Nearby, there are many chocolate shops. We bought Godiva and few other types. To use the restrooms here, one has to pay (40 cents per person). Next we stopped in a place called Atomium. It is iron atom blown up 165 million times. We took some photos. Weather has been excellent throughout. There was a bit of a drizzle in the grand palace area.
From there we drove to Eindhoven. This hotel is called Koningshof and is a huge facility. We had our hot Indian dinner at the hotel. After a full stomach, we went on a night walk behind the hotel to a pond. It was not a great pond. But the walk was good and helped to digest all the good food we ate for dinner.


Eindhoven to Amsterdam and back
We had fine breakfast at the NH Koningshof hotel. From Eindhoven we went first to Rotterdam (river Rhine) and then we headed to a place called Madurodam , very close to the summer capital The Hague. This place is called the miniature Holland

It is a park that depicts important buildings and places in Holland. The whole place and activities around it is miniaturized (1:25). It shows all the important locations such as Airports, train stations and government buildings. Working amusement parks and railroads are a wonder. Facility is beautifully maintained. It is 14.50 euro per adult. We spent 90 minutes (10:30 to 12)

Along the way we stopped for 5 minutes to have a closer look at the famed windmills.
Next we visited Henri Willig - Volundem cheese factory. We bought herb and spiced cheese flavor. There was a small demo on cheese making.
Here, I need to explain about lunch. There are caravans that stores food/stoves to prepare food. Kuoni rents a place in or near the attractions for seating/eating. There are cooks in the caravan who come with the caravan. Within an hour, they quickly setup the tables etc and food is served. Usually it is full-fledged plate with dhal, naan, yougurt, rice, papad etc.
Next we visited the Clog factory. Dutch is famous for wooden shoes. This is their tradition. They make different types of shoes, similar ro leather.

After the clog factory, we headed to Amsterdam downtown. There are quite a lot to see in this place including famous museums. We were supposed to visit a diamond cutting factory. As soon as we entered the downtown, there was commotion and Orange. PARADE!!! For the returning Dutch team. We were in the middle of it. All of us got a flag “ORANGE BOVEN” to hold and wave. Diamond factory was closed and instead we were cheering for the team! That was fun. I tried to find out, what BOVEN means. Three folks I talked to were English! Finally, we got the answer “UP”. We took an hour long canal cruise. Amsterdam pretty much sits on water and canals are everywhere. We saw plenty of houseboats tastefully decorated.
We drove back to Koningshof hotel and reached there by 7:40 PM. Heavy dinner with egg curry! Played basketball for 10 minutes with food sloshing in the tummy.
This hotel has the best showers in the tour so far. It was hot inside the room and fan or a/c.
Sindhu did quite a bit of repacking to be ready for next few days. We went to the bar downstairs and had a beer. P2 could not sleep and came to our bed. Exchanged bed!

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