Alphen aan den rijn to Lisse
0
0
(Alphen aan den Rijn is a town and municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland, between Leiden and Utrecht, situated on the banks of the river Oude Rijn.) A bit of a mouthful for a town name!
After a really pleasant stop in Gouda we set off for Lisse to take a tour of the tulip fields. We stopped off in Alphen for the night and it was such a pleasant location that we ended up staying for a couple of nights. There was a large park next to us which was great, especially as it was a leash-free area for the dogs.
Alphen itself was very nice, not old but not too modern. Lots of well laid out suburbs with a variety of houses. The main canal runs through the town with plenty of attractive properties, restaurants and bars. We quickly latched onto one large waterside bar/restaurant, De Zaak, that was a quick favorite with its flavored iced coffees. I was hoping that we could moor up next to it when we moved on, but unfortunately we left early-ish on the Sunday and as it did not open until 11am, we had to give that a miss.
This was over the Easter bank holiday so we expected it to be busy on the waterways; when we moved on to Lisse though there were stretches that were very quiet but then there were some sections where we were mobbed by lots of leisure craft.
Lisse was not that exciting but with the tulip fields and Keukenhof gardens just two miles from our mooring, the scenery was stunning. We had a lengthy cycle ride around the fields on our first day there, leaving the dogs behind for a few hours.
