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My husband Paul and I went to Holland in June and rode a tandem bicycle from Amsterdam to all the major towns and some of the smaller ones, seeking out the best chocolate shop in every town. Tulips had already expired from the heat, but there were fabulous roses everywhere.
We found Leonidas Chocolate shops in many of the town center shopping areas. Leonidas is a wonderful Belgian chocolatier, and Belgium being right next door to Holland, they offer a beautiful array of excellent fresh chocolates. But the best chocolatier in all of Holland, in my opinion, is Arti Choc, in Amsterdam. Arti Choc offers an exceptional selection of exquisite truffles and bon bons as well as molded chocolate boxes and chocolate seashells that can be filled with a selection of their fine chocolates.
Many of the smaller towns and villages don’t have a chocolate shop, as such, but there is at least one banket bakkery in even the smallest communities, and most of these have large display cases filled with a broad selection of fresh, fine Belgian truffles filled pastries, tarts and an array of decadent desserts. Most of the banket bakkeries don’t advertise their chocolates on signs outside the shops, but if you look, you’ll find the chocolate. Besides the banket bakkeries, there are brood bakkeries in every town and hamlet. Brood bakkeries specialize in breads of all kinds, but they also make cookies and pastries. Either type of bakery usually offers croissants and something called apple flaps (a delicate puff pastry with apple filling). If you go to Holland, do not miss the apple flaps. Our first stop every morning, after biking for an hour, or so, was for apple flaps and some chocolate; then on to the next village and the next chocolate shop or bakkery.
The Dutch are devoted to heavy cream and butter and use it liberally. Fortunately, we were bicycling 25-40 miles a day and walking several miles in the process of sight seeing, so we were burning up everything we could eat. The Dutch can get away with more dietary fat because they ride bicycles to get around (work, shopping, taking the kids to school) and they walk much more than we do in the U.S.
The two best things about this trip were:
One, the ability to go anywhere we wanted by bicycle, never once having to get in a car. Two of our fellow travelers even rode their recumbent tandem bicycle from the airport to the barge.
And two, the ready availability of fine chocolates and pastries.
It wasn’t aaaall chocolate and pastries, though. We also saw:
- 4 parrots and 2 magpies chasing a yellow tabby cat in a park in Amsterdam;
- a large llama, an exotic rooster & several chickens and two wallabies at a house on one of the canals;
- several dogs riding in the front basket of their human companion’s bicycles, just like Toto;
- a man sleeping on a park bench with his personal keg of Heineken at his head and bike parked at his feet.
- a bald biker riding around with a parrot on his shoulder;
- eleven swans a swimming, and a mama duck paddling down the center of a canal with twenty-six little ducklings following along in single file.
- lots of beautiful roses, but not a single tulip.
A small dog saw: an alarming two headed monster napping on a park bench in an urban forest park in Haarlem. Further inspection revealed it to be Paul & me sharing a bench, heads propped in helmets at opposite ends, and with one foot each slung over the bench back.
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