This will be Part 3 of our 53-day around the world trip, which I named Our Monumental Global Adventure, or OMGA.  My final circumnavigation will be called OMEGA, Our Memorably Extraordinary Global Adventure.  No plans for this final journey yet.  I'll also work on that acronym. I left you yesterday in Copenhagen.  The next stop was Amsterdam, for the first of three back-to-back cruises.  We boarded the Tauck Esprit for a tulip river cruise to Brussels.   Forbes  lists their  best European River Cruises : Best Overall:   Viking,   Viking Egdir Best High-End:   Uniworld,   S.S. La Venezia Best For Families:   A-Rosa,   A-Rosa Sena Best For Couples:   Scenic,   Scenic Azure Best For History Lovers:   Tauck River Cruising,   MS Sapphire Best Value:   Emerald Cruises,   Emerald Luna Best For Foodies:   Riverside Luxury Cruises, Riverside Ravel Best For Active Travelers:   AmaWaterways,   AmaMagna Certainly looks like they went out of their way to name all the active companies in this bu

I'm now fully recovered after a ten-hour sleep, partly because I opted out of the Windmills of Lomderdijk tour because I already saw an ancient windmill at Keukenhof.  Yesterday was just too much for an old man.  But let me first quickly review our visit to Keukenhof Gardens, then move on to our Maritshuis Museum exhibition and gala dinner next door at a high end men's club. I left you yesterday with a hodgepodge of photos from Keukenhof.  Today, a more organized and limited summary. The motor coach took us an hour to get to the gardens.  I use motor coach because these buses we're the latest state-of-art vehicles.  Really posh. A couple of shots as we approached Keukenhof. Is there such a thing as a BLACK tulip?  The answer is that the  Paul Sherer tulips can get very dark, but are not quite black. Similarly,  BLUE tulips do not exist .   Nor blue or aqua orchids , Well  this article hints that you can find blue orchids , though they are rare.  Those that you see are dyed 

THIS POSTING IS ANOTHER OF MY EXPERIMENTAL FORAYS NECESSITATED BY MY TRAVEL SCHEDULE.  Here is my problem. A Tauck Tulip cruise on the Espirit is filled with too many things to do that I can't find time to do my blog. Today, I will merely provide a bunch of photos, and later come back to make some sense of my day, Keukenhof in Lisse, Netherlands, is the  ultimate tulip garden of the world, and among the most fabulous of any floral park anywhere.  I have rarely been so impressed about anything of this nature in my life.  Covers 79 acres with 7 million flower bulbs. Keukenhof is only open to the general public for 8 weeks during the tulip season, which is mid-March to mid-May.  Mid-April is best, and yes, it was incredible. One comparison is that the Rijksmuseum, which I visited yesterday, receives an average of 8,000 visitors/day.  Keukenhof does 26,000/day. Created by Adriaen Block, governor of the Dutch East India Company in 1641. Restructured in 1857. However, the park, as it now