We arrived at De Hortus and paid 24 Euros for two tickets to enter. The gardens are mostly outdoors with three large green houses and a few smaller ones. We entered the Butterfly House first and saw larvae and gorgeous plants. It was so humid in this greenhouse that our cameras struggled quite a bit to capture the place without steaming up. 

Next we went to the Tropical Green House which was filled with tropical palms in giant pots. There was a small balcony you could climb to get a view from above. On the balcony’s edge there was a giant plant that resembled a monstara, but I’m pretty sure it has a different name. The roots of this plant cascaded all the way down to the ground floor. We wandered around this greenhouse for quite awhile before entering the last and largest greenhouse, the Three Climate Greenhouse. The first section of this greenhouse was a cooler climate space with tropical plants and a bridgeway that led through the canopy and into the warmer climate section. Once again we climbed up a walkway suspended from the ceiling and weaved our way to the next greenhouse. The next greenhouse was my favourite, it was the most tropical and my lens fogged up immediately. There was a stairway down into the jungle from the first section and at the bottom of the steps there was a huge pond with massive lily pads, the kind that look like they could support human sized frogs. The air and ground was so wet with humidity, I loved it! 

We then entered the last section of the 3 part greenhouse, the cactus house. This room is rather small, but filled with all kinds of cactus in every shade and shape. 

We then left De Hortus and walked towards Rembrandt Square. Along the way we stumbled upon a Holocaust memorial. There were hundreds of thousands of tiles, each with a name of a Dutch victim of the Holocaust. It was sobering. Whenever I see a memorial like this it is obviously powerful, but our world seems like it is in a place right now where history is at a real risk of repeating itself. Never again.

We then wandered to Rembrandt Square where I had had chinese take out food with my mom in 2012! We walked to the flower “Bloemen Markt” and checked  out the stalls selling tulip bulbs before purchasing some fries with mayo to eat in the Rembrandt Square. I guess it is a tradition of mine now to have a take out meal in Rembrandt Square. 

We then found a pub nearby with a happy hour special and sat outdoors on their patio under the heat lamps before heading back to the Central station. 

Along the walk back to Amsterdam Central we stopped to see Anne Frank’s House, which had changed so much since I had seen it in 2006, the first time I went to Europe on my own. 

We then jumped on a train to Schipol airport (platform 11a and 14a). The train was very full but the ride was only about 30 minutes. We arrived back at the airport for 5pm and went through security very quickly once again. We then bought a smoked salmon sandwich and a beer to split for dinner and sat in the airport library by the lockers we had stored our bags in. We moved to our boarding gate about an hour before boarding and boarded what we thought was our last flight to Bali Indonesia…