Today was another easy day. After breakfast in Aachen, we headed northeast to Utrecht where we visited the De Haar Castle. Well, we didn’t visit the castle as much as we visited the gardens and took pictures of the castle from the outside. There were way too many spiral staircases for us to maneuver, so we spent about 40 minutes exploring the expansive garden.
The original castle on this site dates to 1391 but was destroyed and rebuilt several times before this version was constructed in the late 19th century. It is the largest castle in the Netherlands.
The grounds were beautiful.
Here’s the castle from the back garden.
Visiting the castle only took us a few minutes out of the way, so we’re glad we stopped to see it. But we were getting very cold and hungry, so it was back to car for the 50-minute drive to the Hilton Garden Inn in Leiden, about 20 minutes from Schiphol Airport. There’s nothing to do here but it’s a place to lay our heads down tonight. The good news, though, is that they have a restaurant, so we stayed here for lunch. It was pasta for both of us.
Tomorrow, we take the car back to the airport and head to Amsterdam. As nice as it was to have the car to get around, I’m glad to get rid of it. It will be nice to “park” ourselves for a while. After the 5 days in Amsterdam, we have 9 days in Israel, 9 days in Greece and 5 in Turkey before heading home 4 weeks from today. We’ve been moving around quite a bit and we’re both getting tired so not having to keep loading/unloading the car will be great. Talk to you later. Love from us.
The grounds look so pretty, but you guys look cold!
I am surprised by how much Italian food there is everywhere you go. But, then again, it’s the best food there is! Right, Peter????
Yesterday was balmy compared to today. It was in the low 40s, cloudy, breezy and damp. We’re not used to this anymore; it’s why we live in a desert.