May 2025

Each spring, 79 acres of land is filled with over 7 million blossoms & 1.5 million people come to see it during the 8 weeks of the biggest festival of flowers in the world.

Keukenhof Garden is mostly known for tulips, but there are other flowers, too. In 2025, the festival was held from March 20 to May 11, and we were lucky enough to arrive in the Netherlands on May 10th so that we could get to it on the very last day.

We bought tickets online (20 euros per adult) 2 months in advance, and it was the right move to add the parking pass (9 euros). It was a 1.5 hour drive northwest from Riel, where we were staying, and there were good signs directing us to the Keukenhof parking lot after getting off the freeway. Frankly, I am not sure where else one can go to park if you didn’t have the parking pass.

Tulips. More tulips. And more… Once you walk into the park, you are immediately hit by tulips of all colors/sizes/shapes. You can easily be overwhelmed in the first two minutes.

Every autumn 100+ tulip growers donate 7 million burbs to the growers association which organizes the event so that the burbs can be planted in time for the festival.

We entered the park with a 10:30 AM time stamped tickets, and the park seemed relatively calm. That changed about an hour later. People began pouring in while the early visitors were still lingering. We bought delicious fries from a cart, but it was obvious we had to be far away from the park to have a quiet lunch.

Luckily, there seemed to be the beautiful town of Leiden within a 20 minute drive. Unfortunately, Leiden was jam packed with people when we arrived. That day happened to be the annual marathon day and it felt like all 120,000 people of the town were out and about. Darn!

As we drove well out of the town, we saw a hotel and a restaurant near a freeway entrance. Even that restaurant was full of people, but we did get to eat.

Keukenhof was an experience not to be missed. it’s not everyday that you are overwhelmed by simply beautiful flowers!

A note to self: Leiden looked like a very pretty town. Next time.

May 2025

Occasionally, we go to a place that we didn’t know existed. On this occasion, we were doing a home exchange with Dutch friends who had told us they lived in a small rural village. Google Maps showed us this house when we put in the address, and we trusted Google to know more than we since we knew nothing about Riel or the house.

We were quite surprised to find this house instead when we arrived following Google directions. Is this the right place? We found the keys where our friends hid them.

Riel, population 2,560, didn’t feel like a rural village. We soon found out it was more like a very comfortable suburb of Tilburg, a much bigger city of 220,000 people.

In fact, there was a local brewery that was attached to a monastery & our first meal in town had to include the beer from there. For that, we had to go to the next town, Goirle, since Riel didn’t have any full service restaurant.

There was a grocery market, a cafe, and a take out place in Riel. I was happy to find an Action store, though, which is a discount store much like the Japanese chain Daiso. I was to spend hours in that store one day hunting treasures. You never know what you will find in any town anywhere!

Goirle – I still don’t know how to pronounce that name – is a real town of 23,900 people. They have churches, real shopping streets, and a small mall. Of course there were numerous restaurants, too.

De Eetkamer was recommended by our hosts’ son-in- law, and it was excellent overall.

In my city slicker mind, “rural” signifies farming and isolation. In a compact, well-to-do country like the Netherlands, it may just mean more breathing room and space & the farmers are never too far from the urban centers. I could see why people like our friends would have chosen to live in a place like Riel. I could even picture myself living in a place like this where life would be slower and people are more physically active without sacrificing too much of modern niceties.

We happily parked ourselves in Riel for 10 days and visited surrounding areas without too much stress. We ate out for lunch while we were out and about but made dinner at home most nights. We were able to have nice lunches for 10 to 20 euros per head. The groceries were often cheaper and better quality – fresher, tastier – than in the U.S. Our village living experiment in Riel was very pleasant and satisfying!

May 2025

Duesseldorf was a nice surprise. We ended up there purely for logistical reasons. We wanted to rent a car in Germany because we were to end our trip 20 days later in Berlin & wanted to avoid paying a cross border return fee, which could be hefty. Conveniently, Tunis Air flew direct from Tunis to Duesseldorf (2.5 hours/$80 one way), which is just a 90 minute drive from our destination, Riel, a small town in southern Netherlands.

We arrived there, checked into a hotel near the airport, had dinner and went to bed.

The next morning we took a quick tour of the city. The photo of the colorful building shown above had caught my eye, thus, we found a parking lot in this area and started walking from there.

Following the river, you could reach the Old Town in under 30 minutes – it’s a little over 2 Km – and you could see the old and new of the city in a nutshell.

Media Harbor (Mediahafen) is a redeveloped area that used to be an abandoned warehouse district off the Rhine River. Now it boasts buildings designed by star architects & occupied by numerous high tech and design companies.

One thing lacking on a Sunday morning was a place to eat breakfast. We thought we would be able to find a wonderful cafe here! But people don’t work on Sundays after all.

Duesseldorf is a city of 650,000 people on the east bank of the Rhine. We expected people to be strolling along the river, but I didn’t expect the crowds in the photo below!

We meandered through the Old Town (Altstadt) which is known as the “longest bar in the world” due to the fact that over 300 bars and pubs fill up this area selling their signature beer called Altbier (Old Beer). The City Hall, Old Market Square, and the Castle Tower are here, too.

Then we came to the canals of Konigsallee and the ever famous tree lined street packed with shops and restaurants.

Duesseldorf is supposed to be a fashion center in Germany, but we didn’t get to witness that during our short visit.

We took Uber back to the parking lot in the Media Harbor to conclude our tour.

Duesseldorf seemed to be a livable city where we could have easily spent at least 2-3 days. Now we know.