The tourist office staffperson gave me directions in readiness for heading out from my hostel to the flower markets at Aalsmeer for the next morning as having to catch a bus from Liedesplein - which i did - ie the 171 and i did enjoy the walk and sights of the early morning from my hostel near the red light district up to Liedesplein - but i of course came to realise that the 171 and 172 actually go to and from Centraal Station.
which was ideal for heading off from Centraal Station to catch a train out of town to Alkmaar.
The buses are pretty much on time and are quite frequent at at least every half an hour. There is a timetable at the bus stop outside the Aalsmeer flower market centre.
There were some excellent examples of Dutch architectural design along the route.
Written Apr 22, 2007
Aalsmeer is a local shopping centre for a district that is centred between Utrecht, Leiden and Amsterdam. It has some nice shoppingstreets that offer a wide variety in clothing shops as well as other specialities. Art galeries invite to look around for a special painting or statue, but the definate must in Aalsmeer is ... flowers. Going home from this place to your wife and telling her where you have been, without offering a nice bouquet ... well, there are divorces that started out with that - hahaha (-:
What to buy: Flowers in various bouquets, colours, smells and variaties.
Written Apr 12, 2004
Favorite thing: In and around Aalsmeer until the 17th century one lived from peat digging (proove are the many lakes in this area now). Then the profit in this lowered and people started to look for other means of income. This quickly was found in fruit and the fruittrees appeared row by row. Also vegetables and strawberries seemed to grwo good on the organic soils here and nearby Amsterdam was a well paying consumer market. Slowly the flowers and plants however became more profitable and the farmers turned over to this speciality. With the first greenhouses and the opportunity to make year'round production, the tone was set and Aalsmeer became the world's capitol of flower-trade.
Written Apr 11, 2004
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