Paleis Het Loo

On Saturday we went on an excursion that was organized by Xander’s company.  It was a tour of one of the castles of the Dutch royal family.   We were supposed to be there from 2pm – 4pm but there was a big detour and our bus ended up arriving a half hour late.

There was a few hundred of us so they split us up into groups of 25-30 and gave us a tour guide.   Ours was ok but she went really fast and whenever I wanted to stop to take photos I had to stop and leg it to keep up with our group.  We didn’t get to spend much time inside and the garden tour was a bit rushed but it was nice to see the place.  Xander and I both agreed that we definitely want to go back sometime on our own so we can take our time and look around more.

We also weren’t allowed to take photos inside the castle, what a bummer!   Not even with your flash off…

My favorite part of the tour was this tree.  A Canadian Maple tree brought back to the Netherlands by Princess Juliana after the Second World War.   She was sent there during the war so she would be safe and brought this back with her when she returned.   This is what it looks like over 50 years later.   Another Canadian transplant, just like me!

The colors were beautiful and it really reminded me of home.   It made me excited to think of how close our trip back to Canada is and colorful it will be when we are there. 

The gardens were stunning, much nicer than I was able to capture in any of my photos.   Apparently there is 16 kilometers of hedges and 35 gardeners to tend to them.   Also, if you were to look at the gardens from above and fold it over, it’s perfectly symmetrical.  If only I had a plane of my own, or say, a hot air balloon…

The strangest thing was the peacocks roaming around the property.  They seemed to be everywhere!  None of them had the cool tail feathers though, it looked like they had all been cut off.

Xander figures they were all cut off to make new hats for the Queen.  She has about a billion hats and never wears the same one twice.  

Now every time I see her on TV I’ll be looking for the peacock feathers… but I highly doubt she’d ever be that obvious, if she was growing peacocks to support her hat addiction.