June 17th - This was the last day of the Rick Steves tour, but not for the Travelin’ Trio! We had to leave at 6:00am before the final tour group breakfast at our Vienna hotel opened.
 
Our taxi dropped us off at the wrong airport terminal but with help from two different airport employees and a lot of walking through chandeliered hallways, we got to the KLM ticket counter. The line was long and slow but we made it in time (it helped that our plane was delayed). We arrived in Amsterdam and took the train to Almere.

Almere was the stage for the Floriade Expo 2022 world horticultural exhibition. The theme for 2022 was “Growing Green Cities” and the exhibits covered a 60-acre site. Together with national and international partners, Dutch horticulture advocates presented innovations and solutions for sustainable and liveable cities.
 
A taxi drove us to our hotel, Ibis Styles Almere, on the outskirts of town. It was sleek and modern and very clean, with helpful English-speaking staff.

As long as the day had already been, it was still early after we settled in our rooms and when will we be this close to Amsterdam again? The hotel clerk told us about a train station closer to the hotel than the city center station we arrived at earlier. We walked out the back door of our hotel and down a back street to a bus stop, took the bus to the train station, and took the train to Amsterdam.

We found a great restaurant for dinner (good food with a nice view right on a canal) and then wandered the city of Amsterdam. Lots of photography and some gelato followed.

June 18th - The Floriade Expo is only held once every 10 years.  Two of us went to Floriade 30 years ago in Zoetermeer (near The Hague). When we figured out our Rick Steves tour was going to be in a Floriade year, we knew we had to return.

We got up early to catch the bus and head off to Floriade. We got in lots of steps and, after a quick Mickey D stop for some breakfast, we arrived!
 
The festival area (which will be redeveloped into Hortus: a green, healthy urban district for the future) contains flowers, art made of natural matter, sculptures and art about nature, exhibits from countries about their horticulture, performing artists, and more.

Probably our favorite exhibit was the “Ever Seeing Eye” by The Almere Wool Union.
 
Created out of pieces of wool fabric colored with natural dyes, one wall looks like a beautiful human eye and the other wall is filled with glass jars with the natural dyes used the die the fabric.
 
It’s hard to describe, and the pictures barely capture it, but it was very creative and stunning.

We left Floriade by boat and then returned to Almere where there was so much to see and do! We had dinner at an outdoor restaurant (fun to watch the swings for seats at the table across the way) and explored an outdoor shopping mall with a live band playing and a slide that went down a staircase.

Our time in Europe was coming to an end. We returned to Frankfurt for flights home,
so click here to return to the Germany page for a fond farewell.

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