The Netherlands

Untie the Knot With a Stay at the “Divorce Hotel”

Wedding Cake ©Kim Marius Flakstad In the Netherlands you can pair your next weekend getaway with a divorce. Entrepreneur Jim Halfens is the mastermind behind the dutch “Divorce Hotel.” The idea came to Halfens when he recognized a gap in the market in the Netherlands, where the average divorce can easily run into five figures [...]

Thieves Make Off With Gigantic Clog in Enter, Netherlands

Giant Wooden Shoe ©wonker Police in the Dutch town of Enter are are investigating the theft of the Netherland’s largest clog after it disappeared without a trace last weekend. The theft was not a light task, considering the wooden shoe is 2m high, 4m in length and weighs almost two tons. Police spokeswoman Rosita de [...]

Find Your Next Seat Mate On Facebook

Airplane Seats ©S Baker Very soon you won’t have to worry about getting an annoying seat mate during your next long flight. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is rolling out a service which will allow passengers to use Facebook and LinkedIn to pick their seat mates on a flight. KLM has dubbed the service “social seating” [...]

Pickled Human Flesh at Amsterdam’s Tattoo Museum

Traditional Tattoo Sketch © (((o.kvlt))) Amsterdam is home to a variety of museums. There are two sex museums, a marijuana museum, and of course the more mainstream Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum. But earlier this year the city added another museum to its collection, The Tattoo Museum. The Tattoo Museum is the result of three [...]

101 Other Things to Do in Holland

Amsterdam ©AMagill U.S. comedian Mark Malkoff stars in a tongue-in-cheek video series proving that the city made (in?)famous by its liberal marijuana laws has much more to offer tourists. Malkoff’s Amsterdam to-do list runs the gamut from #65 visiting the bathrooms at the Rijks Museum to #21 feeding the pigeons in Dam Square. In one [...]

Cheap Flights Allow for Prostitution at Amsterdam Airport

A large number of budget flights from Eastern Europe and other parts of the world to the Netherlands has created a ring of prostitution at Amsterdam airport, giving a new meaning to the word layover. Prostitutes are flying into Schiphol Airport and using the hotels in the international transit area to meet with clients without [...]

Maastricht Coffee Shops Ban Irritating Nationalities

Coffee Shop © andrijbulba Yahoo News reports that smoking a joint in the Dutch city of Maastricht will soon be restricted to Dutch, Belgian and German citizens–though probably not for the reasons you would assume. While authorities are attempting to cut back on drug tourism in the Netherlands, the city of Maastricht cites traffic woes [...]

Eat Your Heart Out Crayola! Stunning Dutch Tulip Fields [Gallery]

Dutch Tulip Fields © The Daily Mail The Daily Mail brings us some truly stunning photos of Dutch tulip fields in bloom.

Photo of the Moment: Hypnotic Twilight, Holland

Reviving the Ghosts of Amsterdam

Ghosts of Amsterdam © Jo Teeuwisse From historical consultant, Jo Teeuwisse, comes one of the cleverest photography concepts I’ve seen in some time: After discovering some negatives at a flea market and scanning them onto her computer, Teeuwisse then went to each of these Amsterdam locations to take more recent shots. She then merged the [...]

Photo of the Moment: Suikerspin, Amsterdam

And The World Begins To Weep – Holland Tightening Cannabis Industry

The sad news is coming in that two towns in the Netherlands, Roosendaal and Bergen-op-Doom, will be shutting down their cannabis cafes after evaluating that they could no longer cope with the approximate 25,000 “drug tourists” swarming in from France and Belgium. “Soft drug tourism is the motor of criminality linked to (harder) drugs,” they [...]

Photo of the Moment: Rijn Kanaal Bike Path, Amsterdam

Signspotting: Alien Men’s Room at the Science Fiction Museum, Seattle

Photo of the Moment: Camels in Amsterdam

Amsterdam’s Narrowest Bike Path

The Incredible Shrinking Dollar: Amsterdam Turning Away U.S. Currency

If you wanted a reality check about the actual state of the beleaguered U.S. dollar, you might want to head to Amsterdam where small currency exchange firms are turning away dollars. The US currency has fallen badly against the Euro with one Euro currently worth roughly $1.58. Tourists looking to exchange their dollars have to [...]

Dutch Architects Float a New Plan to Deal with Climate Change

Global warming is going to impact countries like the Netherlands earlier than others. In this low-lying country where the roads and the waterways seem to merge at some point sooner or later, close to 20 percent of the country is underwater, and flooding is getting harder to control. Now, according to NPR, city planners have [...]

And Now: A Hotel for Deep Thinkers

Socrates would have loved the new Hotel de Filosoof in Amsterdam. Dedicated to deep thinkers and philosophers, this 38 room boutique hotel has been inspired by the great minds of history. Each room features a particular philosophical theme, inspired by greats like Plato and Goethe, and the theme is reflected in the murals, framed quotations [...]

Photo of the Moment: Bikes of Holland

Bikes of Holland / © Jody Morris

White Washing Amsterdam’s Red Light District

© wili hybrid Amsterdam is all set to clean up its red light district. No need to worry though. They don’t plan to shut the whole thing down. Worried about abuse, trafficking and money laundering, the city simply plans to put better checks in place. According to Mayor Job Cohen, the city will clamp down [...]

Dutch Plan to Redraw Map with a Floral Touch

Experts in The Netherlands are drafting plans to build an island shaped like the tulip flower off the coast of the country. This isn’t so much an exercise in vanity – think Dubai’s Palm Island – as it is an effort to protect the coastline, and make available more land for residents. Real estate in [...]

Marijuana and Hookers? Fine, But Please Don’t Eat the Mushrooms

The Netherlands has a pretty easygoing stance on sin. You can buy a woman sitting in her undies in a shop window; go on a marijuana binge culminating in your eating a shipping container of Doritos; and take your bikini top off any damned well where you please. But the local constabulary would like you [...]

1 Gallon of Dutch Disconnect, Please

MightyGirl tries to order a latte in Amsterdam. The US/metric-system debate rears its ugly head. Coffee shop hilarity ensues.

News You Might Have Missed: The Yin-Yang of Amsterdam

Amsterdam is a city of contradictions … Nah, too cliche. Amsterdam – the hazy Paris of the East … Nope. Paris of the [fill-in-the-blank] has been done to death. Plus, I think there might already be a city in Europe called Paris. Amsterdam – goddamn, they love drugs! Not exactly creative. And perhaps not altogether [...]