Saint Marten walk in the Vondelpark

11 of November is the day in which my lampion is enlightened...

These are the first words of the most famous Saint Maarten song. On the 11 of November kids prepare coloured lampions and go around ringing bells in houses singing songs and asking candies for it. 

A sort of dutch Halloween -door to door- trick ot treat. 

In Amsterdam there is a very special walk organized every year in the Vondelpark, where kids can walk around the park singing songs and carrying their light, it is very fascinating moment, as it is dark and with all the coloured lights. A band with music walks around with the families. 

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Lego Event in Zwolle

WHAT

For the 12th year on a row, Zwolle will become the capital of Lego welcoming the largest spectacle in the World of the famous colored bricks! In the 6 halls by the Ijssel, kids will enjoy a big world built out all of Lego, with life-size constructions, and will have the chance to build whatever they want with millions of bricks! Great prizes can be won by building amazing constructions and at the end of the week there will be the grand finale for the Best Lego Builder of the Netherlands championship.

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Restaurant Praq

WHAT

Former famous spot in Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, Restaurant Praq recently moved to the new boosting neighborhood of Waaidorp, in its brandly new building by dutch designer & architect Tjep. It is just north of Amsterdam, near the Zeeburger islands, and easily reachable by car on the A10. They have classic recipes and biological products, in the summer time a huge sunny errace is available with wood-fired oven for real italian pizza!

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Oud Valkeveen

Oud Valkeveen is a very beautiful play park overlooking the beach on the Gooimeer, a big lake just east of Amsterdam, near the towns of Bussum, Naarden and Huizen.

It has always been a recreational and entertainment area, and since a hundred years there used to be a pannekoeken house and people came here to bathe and sit in the sun. Now it's a park with plenty of fun attractions for children!

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Party time... what to prepare!

Well, when I have to host a birthday party, I always try to make my best to prepare things that kids like and easy to do.

Here are a couple of tips for a successful birthday party!

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Playing at the Vondelpark

Grote Speelvijver Vondelpark, a difficult name for a beautiful place. The translation is large play pond in the Vondelpark, and as I was telling in the last post, now it's springing because the pools are all open and weather is just great!

 

And in this playground in the middle of the Vondelpark, there are also many other kids entertainment activities: a huge wooden castle to climb, two bungalows where I often see "monkey" children with the head upside-down, a big sand pit area with some water games. Lately they also placed a set of new swings, some normal ones, a round large one and then a train swing, a sort of family type, where three children can go at the same time, I have never seen one like this before!! 

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Open air pools are now open!!!

With this lovely weather the best plan is to head to one of the open air pools that are all around in the parks of Amsterdam!

Here you can find all the locations of the pools in town.

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Sprookjes Wonderland

This fairy tale theme park has been voted from ANWB members as one of the three top outings in the Netherlands in 2012. 

Here you can find the representations of all the most famous stories of our youth, Pinocchio, Hansel and Gretel and Gulliver.

Kids also love the tours with the old model cars or ride a wooden horse. The very little ones can also make a tour on a tiny ladybird on water

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Nemo

Nemo is the biggest Science and Technology Museum in the Netherlands. Open since 1997, it is hosted in a very peculiar building designed by italian famous architect Renzo Piano, shaped as a hull of a ship overlooking the Ij canal.

In the summer time, the top of the terrace, made with huge stone steps, turns into a sort of city beach, with sandy areas, and little water rivers. The top floor restaurant makes it the better place where to stop during the visit on a sunny day.Otherwise there are two coffee areas on the ground floor and on dek 2, where you can also bring your own food as a picnic.

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Chimpie Champ

As the weather is still not so warm and sunny as we all would love it to be... let's just enjoy the kids' days with indoor playgrounds! 

 

Here is a new address where to go just outside Amsterdam, in Aalsmeer, it takes more or less 20-25 minutes to go there from city center. Chimpie Champ is a huge indoor space all in theme with jungle, african animals and especially monkeys.

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The Dolfinarium

Lots of fun you will find by visiting the Dolfinarium in Hardewijk, it is 45 minutes to 1 hour drive from Amsterdam, and you will see dolphins, seals, sea lions, walruses and all sorts of fishes! Throughout the day, there are plenty of shows both in the lakes or water areas of the park, and in the big indoor dome.

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Are you planning your holidays?

There is a lovely Travel Book Shop in Overtoom which is a perfect place where to start dreaming about your holidays!

 

It is actually also good to go there with the children, as they have small tables in the back of the store and toys to play with. 

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Queens' Day - Where to go

Amsterdam becomes a huge orange flea market on Queens' Day, it's something very special, there's lots of positive energy, everybody is happy and willing to make jokes.

If you are not ready yet to organize yourself with a very dutch traditional stall, enjoy the day just walking around, watching the show, and.... don't forget to dress up all in Orange!

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Queens' Day - What children can do

It's Queensday again!

Lovely time of the year, spring is blooming and we all cross our fingers hoping to get a nice and sunny day. But many people are actually scared of Queensday as it becomes so busy everywhere and handling children can be quite difficult! The best thing if you have older children (4+) is to organize a stall somewhere in the Vondelpark as this is the reign of children.

Here are some of the activities I have seen doing in the park throughout the years and some of them were really hilarious.

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Baby Swimming in Zuiderbad

Zuiderbad in Museumplain opened 100 years ago. It used to be a covered school where to learn how to ride bicycles, then in 1912 the nicely art-deco building was converted in the actual swimming pool. It is right in the heart of the city, next to the Rijksmuseum, and it really has kept the flavour of an ancient swimming pool both for the stunning structure, which is even more impressive from the inside, and for the little details, as the fountain corners and the mosaics.

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Linnaeushof

With more than 350 activities and games installations, Linnaeushof is the biggest play area in Europe, as stated on their website. This year, for the second time, it has also been nominated as the Best Day Trip Out in the Netherlands.

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Olympia Playground

This is very well hidden playground which has lots of nice wooden game activities all inspired by theme "sea".

 

There is a prow of a boat to climb with a helm at the top so the child can have the feeling to sail. It's open inside, so you can go in and slide down from the opening.

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Japanese Garden (in AMS Woods)

When the sun comes out, one of the first places where you should have a walk is the Japanese Garden in the Amsterdamse Bos. It gets its full blossom by the first half of april and lasts only for a month or so, until mid May usually.

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Olmenhorst Estate

Olmenhorst is a beautiful estate in Lisserbroek. On the estate you can find many activities for children (and for adults as well!) . Olmenhorst's speciality is: Apples! The apple orchard is endlessly lined with apple trees, from which you can let the children pick the apples directly from the branches! I find it important for city children to install the feeling of the country side and involving them actively in agricultural activities.

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Keukenhof

Why can Keukenhof be special for children? There are many reasons, of course if you have a newborn it ' just lovely to have a walk' in the middle of this huge variety of flowers.

But the main reason in my opinion is that when children are young, they like to play, but they also need if not deserve to be taught the basics of the country in which they are living in. Flowers, as much as bicycles, are a symbol of the Netherlands, and this is a nice way to explain it to your older children.

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