Yep, it's The Netherlands, or Holland, never quite sure which is correct. I do know it's the home of the Dutch, so it's a friendly affair.

Our inspiration was clear, Tulips & Cheese, but we also wanted to see grand Dutch Windmills. All I had to do was peddle.

Most of our European road trips start the same. Booked on a 7:50 am shuttle, means leaving home at 6:30 am. All being well we're hitting the A16 from Calais at 9:30 am after being mugged for an hour as we switch to Central European Time.

Therefore, in my mind, we hit the road at 9:30 - all points start from Calais.

I've already completed my road trip checklist, so fully fuelled & Werther's on-board.

A fair wind, some luck around Antwerp and we've arrived at Naaldwick at 1:15 pm, so around 3 hours 45 minutes to cover the 225 miles/362km.

Now for the signs for the 'Flower Route' - Mmmm did we miss them, not sure. We certainly didn't see any, so we headed through The Hague, and onto Leiden, following the N44. The swathes of colour we'd expected to see were absent, and it wasn't until we closed into Lisse that we spotted a few of the fields full of flowers in bloom.

So with limited success, we headed onto our destination, the Carlton Square Hotel, a 10-minute walk from the centre, but with secure parking an ideal option.

The secure parking turned out to be a multi-storey car park next door, but it was indeed secure, and the top tip was to buy the weekly option for the ticket as it was cheaper than daily, even thought we were staying three nights.

Haarlem is a great town to explore, check out the link for more. Plus it was an excellent base for the Keukenhof Gardens. However, in no time at all, we were heading to our next destination, via a detour of course.

Why Zandvoort? Well, those who have got to know us via this blog will understand we both love history, and we both love motor racing. Zandvoort was a classic Formula 1 Grand Prix location, known as the Circuit in the Dunes, as it is next to the North Sea.

The roll call of winners at the track is a 'who's who' of the legends of Formula 1. However, it also holds a place in Formula 1 dark days when safety was barely considered, and so also the last racing venue of too many.

So after soaking up some history and nostalgia we head on to Alkmaar, and even with the detour we complete the 42-mile journey in no time.

It's also worth noting today is Koningsdag or King's day, so we decided to head to our next destination, the Amrâth Hotel Alkmaar to park up the car and partake of the celebrations. You know, 'When in Rome', and all that! It also gives us a chance to discover the town.

Alkmaar is a cheese town, but it's also so much more. Check out Janis's post on Alkmaar; it's also the base for our discovery of four harbour towns.

It's just 50 miles/80kms from Alkmaar to Utrecht. It seems nowhere is that far here. In fact, Maastricht in the south is just 156 miles/252kms, and Groningen in the far north is 110 miles/177kms.

So when faced with planning a route I thought Mmmm, this looks interesting. There's a road that runs over a lake, quite a big lake, the Markermeer

So we took this route to Utrecht. It may have been 87miles/139kms, but hey it was different. I think I nearly did that again lapping Utrecht trying to find how to park at the NH Central Hotel. It's entrance is next to a bike lane, although while one or two cars may be able to stop outside, the secure parking is 220m away. (An another 1/2 lap of the city)

The car is not that welcome in Utrecht, and I'm fine with that. As planned we head out to visit the windmills if Kinderdijk, and via a tiny little ferry a quick look around Gouda too. The reason I love a road trip is the freedom to explore those towns & villages that give you a bigger picture of a country.

Who else would contemplate a road trip to Amsterdam? I did, but that gave us a chance also to visit Delft & our first visit to Gouda. Okay, parking the car in Amsterdam ramped up the costs a bit, but was it worth it - yeah!

Anyway, I digress. Utrecht was fun, We explored, and we followed the evening light trail - Trajectum Lumen.

But then the inevitable…

It's time to head home - but not before one last photo stop to capture the ‘Rietveld Schröder House’.

It's grey, there's a little drizzle in the air, and the GPS is warning me to avoid Antwerp - That's good, I was planning on doing that anyway. So after 4 hours, it's back to the Calais terminal of the Le Shuttle before the journey back to the UK, and I'm handed back that hour.

We have created a little YouTube video of the road trip.

Why not subscribe to our YouTube channel and get the latest clips as we post them?

As with any road trip there is always an album, playlist or single track that seems to dominate.

There was a mix on this trip from Ed Sheeran's Divide, a little bit of Elbow but the one album that seemed to be on loop was Rag 'n' Bone Man's Human - Wow, that boy's got some soul.

So here’s the details of the individual legs

So as you can see, there's so much to see without having to cover a huge amount of distance. Get planning.

It's a fabulous country with so much to see.

Friendly people, wonderful landscape without a hill to bother you.

Go on give it a try.

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