Volendam, Netherlands 2013

As promised, this is my second post about my days in The Netherlands. Today’s itinerary, we will be going to a town called Volendam, about a few kilometers to the north of Amsterdam. It is commonly known as the fishing village due to the inhabitants of fishermen here. Volendam is also a hot tourist destination due to it’s traditional Dutch costumes.

So on our way there, we stopped by this huge windmill for some pictures. Check it out!:

A wild sheep appeared!

So, we continued our journey to Volendam. The great thing about Netherlands is that, it so windy!! Like really! U can see how strong the winds are just by looking at the above photo. The tall grass literally sways with the wind direction. It’s like having a natural giant fan all day long!

Just some pictures along the way:

We finally reached Volendam! I’m just simply blown away on how beautiful and peaceful this place is!! Even though it’s touristy here, the atmosphere is just great!! It’s just a beauty seeing all those houses, locals having tea outside their houses, the fishermen boats. It’s just simply awesome!! Check these pictures out! :

We had our lunch at this restaurant specializing in selling fish & chips. You can find many restaurants there selling fish & chips. You can also get your souvenirs here. There are plenty of souvenir shops here. Do shop around to get the best prices!! There’s many shops selling T-shirts too! Not forgetting, there’s a cheese factory here. So, you can also get you cheese here in case you had missed it earlier on.

Don’t be surprised if you see locals wearing this funny costume with clogs. They are just wearing the traditional Dutch costume. Volendam is known to have locals still wearing those costumes. And best of all, you can also get yourself photographed with those costumes!! I mean why not having something different as a souvenir right?? I got mine taken, check it out!

Well, that’s all I have for now in Volendam. Overall, a really nice place with a great place for souvenirs. Food is also manageable and easy to find. A fish & chips meal cost you about EUR 12. There are also snack bars along the way. The only downside is that this place might be touristy. I strongly recommend for you getting your photo taken with those costumes!! 🙂

Netherlands Part 3

Paris, France 2013 Part 1 – Disney Village Paris

After spending 2 nights in Switzerland, it’s now time to head to the French capital of Paris. We boarded the bus at 0830 and the bus ride will last for 10 hours. 😦

However, the bus ride experience wasn’t that bad. The coach is really comfortable and the roads were in good condition thus providing a really smooth journey! And I forgot to mention somehow, European bus drivers are only allowed a certain number of hours to drive per day. And better still, they have this chip-like thingy in their bus to monitor their performance, speed and time. So there’s no way these drivers can cheat. That makes sense cause my driver was always keeping to the speed limit even though there’s a long stretch of empty highway ahead. We also had to make stops for every 2 hours on the road.

About 2-3 hours into the journey, we arrived at the Swiss-French border .At first, I was expecting a checkpoint-like procedure whereby passports needed to be stamped. However, this is not needed in Europe when travelling overland due to the EU agreement. The border just looked more like a gas station with a few counters and toilets. Our bus now enters France territory.

Now, travelling in France, the surroundings changed a little bit. There aren’t many country houses around but instead really huge plains of fields. I can already imagine how big is France. We stopped at this rest area along the main highway for lunch. Now, it’s all in Euros.  Had a baguette at Autogrill.

Our lunch stop

The vast lands of France

The vast lands of France

After lunch, it took us about 7 hours to reach our destination, which is the Disney village. We arrived around 1845. Today we will be spending a night at the Magic Circus Hotel, which is a close proximity to the Disneyland Paris. The hotel looks very unique with a circus-themed design to it. Rooms are also designed such that it has tent similar to those in the circus and the wardrobe doors, floors are decorated. This hotel has an arcade at the lobby but it seems that nobody is interested in those. And I found out that the hotel goes at EUR 200 per night. WIFI needs to be purchased separately at EUR 9 for a 24 hour access.

Hotel Lobby

Hotel Lobby

Hotel Room

Hotel Room

Hotel Room

Hotel Entrance

After putting our bags and headed to the Disney village for dinner. There is a free shuttle bus service that picks up from hotels around the Disney village area to the actual Disney village. Buses intervals were at 10 minutes and the ride to the Disney village takes about 5 minutes.

We walked to the Disney village, which is free! It has many chains of shops, eateries and souvenir shops. Before entering, one must scan your bags at the security checkpoint. There are a lot of themed shops like Planet Hollywood, World of Disney, Buffalo Bill, just to name a few. We had our dinner at Earl Of Sandwich. It is similar to Subway, however the only thing differs here is the ingredients in the sandwich. This restaurant is cheaper for theme park standards with meals costing at EUR 9 per meal.

Hot Air Balloon!

Another Themed restaurant

Great place for souvenirs

Disney Village

Planet Hollywood. Sells souvenirs and a restaurant as well!

Disney Village. This is not the entrance.

A big store to get your souvenirs!

We shopped around looking for souvenirs, since there’s not much to do in the village itself. And to make it worst, we were still tired from the long bus journey. I bought some magnets, key chains and a Paris Disneyland Tee. We headed back to our hotel for a long deserving rest. It’s kinda disappointing that I don’t get to enter Disneyland itself, due to time constrain. I will make a return there and this time going to Disneyland! This is a promise!

This is where you will wait for you shuttle service to hotels near the Disney village

Bus stop for the shuttle bus

A similar shuttle bus

Day 2 in Paris!!