Euro 2014 - On To Sightseeing - Day One, Tulips and Ghent

It's been a totally lovely week with the #3 clan even with the introduction of the newest member.  I remember when #3 had 3.1 and was so freaked out about so many things related to living and dealing with a new baby.  Now she and 3A are like pros and the whole new baby thing is being dealt with aplomb. 

Wife and I are taking a leisurely 5 day drive from the #3's in Amsterdam, Netherlands to where we are renting a house for 3 weeks on the coast of Brittany, France.  We decided to spend most of our time in the Flemish part of Belgium as there are a couple of well known Medieval towns there that I've meant to get to forever but never got around to doing.

Wife wanted to take advantage of being in Netherlands in the spring to get some pictures of the famous tulip fields.  We took a cab from the #3's apartment to where we got our rental car.  Driving in European cities is always an interesting experience.  Fortunately it was very quick for us to get out of Amsterdam proper.  Unfortunately the destination we programed into our trusty Tom-Tom GPS was for a very pricey tulip garden.  We got off to a bad start with missing a key turn and having to wind our way through the town of Leiden until we figured out that the destination was wrong.  In these European towns finding a place to pull over, park, and get redirected is not easy either.  But we finally did and discovered the fields themselves were not that far away.  We were successful in finding them but unfortunately the tulips were past their peak.

 Then we drove on to the city of Ghent.  It was about a 2 and half hour drive.  Pretty uneventful drive.  We are renting a flat in the old part of town.  As we are very experienced with the issues associated with driving and trying to find parking in these kinds of areas, we were sure to get into town in mid afternoon to avoid rush hour traffic.  It all went very smoothly with us finding our place and a parking garage almost right away with no real issues.  We went shopping for some provisions for breakfast and then did a quick tour of our vicinity to get our bearings.

A neat side of a building on our way to shopping

A very typical little square just a block or so from our apartment

One of the major squares and churches (but not sure which.  We'll be more informed tomorrow)

Some other street scenes