Holland Annual Flower Parade & Train Ride

Today was a learning lesson for us on how to use the OV-chipkaart and travel by train. We  headed to Lisse to watch the famous Holland Flower parade.  The parade route starts in Noordwijk and travels about 40 km to Haarlem. The parade is famous for the floats being made with flowers.

When we got on the train headed to our destination the train ticket taker checked our OV-chipkaart to make sure we had checked in. Of course, we had done that. Well, it seems we only had 13.50 Euros on our cards.  She told  us that we needed to have at least 20 Euros on our card to travel on the trains. We  got off the train and when we added money to the OV-chipkaart we were each fined 20 Euros for not having enough money to ride the train. We were advised to use the OV-chipkaart for the busses, metro and trams and when traveling by train to buy a ticket. This piece of education cost us 40 Euros!! but we now know how to use the OV-chipkaart. 

Holland Flower Parade pictures. The main flowers used in the floats were hyacinths. The smell was incredible as the floats passed you.

The parade was about an hour long and then we headed back to the train station to go back home. This was another adventure which involved having to return home by another train route, due to an accident on the rail line, meeting a magician, viewing the flower fields as we wizzed past them and the final arrival at Amsterdam Central station to be part of the thousands of people who have come to Amsterdam to celebrate King's Day on April 27th.

One of  the many flower fields along the train route.