Flower Auction and Artis Zoo

One of the highlights of the first week of 'Oma & Vivi's visit' was our Wednesday trip to the Dutch Flower Auction in Aalsmeer followed by a visit to the Amsterdam Zoo, Artis.

We got up at 4.30 on Wednesday morning to be at the flower auction by 6am. Supposedly, wedensday is a 'slow' day for the auction, meaning that there is a lower quantity of flowers to be auctioned that day, but what we saw was still incredible! Rows and Rows of flowers. It takes a couple of hours to stroll around even the main areas though, according the website of the city of Aalsmeer :

'Every day Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer sets the world price for flowers and plants. Each day, 19 million flowers and two million plants are sold through 13 clocks at 'Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer'. It takes place within an area of almost one million m2 -This means that Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer has the largest trade building in the entire world! You can view the city of Aalsmeer website here: http://www.aalsmeer.nl/00004.asp

By 8am we had seen several of the auction clocks, walked a fair distance overall, and needed some caffenine to think about what to do with the rest of the day, which was really only just getting started!

From Aalsmeer, we drove an indoor route to Amsterdam, where I bought a public transport card. We parked at my office in Amsterdam, so we could catch the tram to the Amsterdam zoo. Kevin protested heaviliy when we arrived at the two after only 2 stops - he wanted to stay and ride the tram rather than visit the zoo. With the the promise of seeing the big turtle, we started the walk to the zoo entrance.

I've posted about Artis before, so this time I'll just stick to the photo highlights of the visit.

A special mention on the photo of Mommy and Oma - this one taken by Little Man on 'his' camera that he got for his birthday!