During my extended stay in Rotterdam doing HelpX, I took a quick overnight trip to Amsterdam, a very convenient train ride away. I got a behind-the-scenes tour at the Van Gogh museum with a relative (no photos allowed), and took a canal tour which was very touristy but still worth it...
Read MoreTulips for days at the Keukenhof Tulip Gardens. I woke up really early to get to the gardens by 9am, located 90 minutes away from Rotterdam...
Read MoreBy the time I got to Deventer I was feeling camera fatigue. So, I didn't take a lot of photos, even being in a formerly walled city with historical architecture. Instead I focused on getting to know my extended family (like, really extended - related through my great-grandfather)...
Read MoreI spent three weeks in Rotterdam, city that my great-grandfather left in 1912. Land of my Dutch last name: Schoenmaker (literally shoe-maker...the kids from middle school were right, for once).
Read MoreFrom Lisbon central - Cais do Sodré - I took the train a few kilometers along the coast to see some famous landmarks including the Tower of Belém and LX Factory...
Read MoreAfter two days in Sintra I trained to Lisbon, capital of Portugal. It is a different rhythm from Sintra: larger city, faster pace, even taller hills, and access to the water.
Read MoreSintra was an unexpected stopover between Luxembourg and the Netherlands. I decided I wanted to go somewhere warm, saw a decently priced flight for the next day, and that was that. Very happy I took the plunge and spent 4 days in Portugal, starting with the mid-sized town of Sintra...
Read MorePalácio da Pena was overrun by tourists (myself included), but it was still a beautiful spot to visit. The vibrant colors, the view of the ocean and the surrounding green space made the cost of entrance worth it.
Read MoreLuxembourg was a confusing country to visit. I couldn't easily conceptualize it as a place, France looks French and Belgium looks Belgian, but Luxembourg looks...Luxembourgish? I didn't have enough previous exposure to know what I was getting into. It is such a mixture of old and new, middle and modern, far and new. Not to mention the Luxembourgish language which sounds (to an English speaker) like soft Dutch and hard French.
Read MoreI had two days to kill before meeting a friend in Luxembourg, so I opened up Google Maps and decided on Basel, a short train ride away from Zürich. It is a mid-size town within walking distance of France and Germany, which came in handy when the local train ticket kiosks refused to print tickets. A short walk to St. Louis, France, got me on the train to my next destination...
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