My wife and I have been fans of the Reviera Maison for quite some time already. While visiting…read moreAlkmaar, today we found their store in Alkmaar and we were extremely surprised with the amazing service at this place! From our holidays in the US, we have seen how service in stores can be done (contrary to the regular service, or rather often lack thereof in dutch stores. While browsing through the store today, we were offered a Sangria drink (unfortunately I had to pass, was the designated driver today...., but my wife really ejoyed it! :) ) After we found something in the store, proactively one of the employees came to me and asked me whether she could place the item already at the cashier. And finally, after paying for the item, again proactively, we got the question whether we were going to do more shopping in Alkmaar because the item was relatively heavy and maybe we wanted to just leave it behind at the shop to retrieve it later on again. All in all, we like the stuff at Riviera Maison, but the service in this particular store was really outstanding!

It is the monument in the middle of the Afsluitdijk dam to celebrate the history and construction…read moreof this massive engineering work. I think it is a place to visit if you are touring Holland. The dam is the one separating the "outside" Northern Sea from the "inner" sea creating the so call artificial Holland way south west. Here you get to have a beautiful view on both sides from the tower and the bridge and of course you can sit at the bar for a warm treat or just a beer. I had a coffee and an apple pie slice on the outside terrace. Food is nothing spectacular but it is nice to find a place where to lounge a bit... and if it is a sunny day it is very pleasant to sit outside. Inside you can get some food, again pre prepared sandwiches and such. There are few tables and of course you can buy souvenirs from "the dam".

On the way to an island in the north of the Netherlands (Terschelling) we stopped at this lunchroom…read morefor some coffee and hot chocolate. It's a nice roadrestaurant on the dam (Afsluitdijk) that separates the north sea from the inner sweet water lake. From the inside you can look out the window over the water. There's also some benches to sit at outside when the weather's nice. The interior looks nice, there's a lot of decoration to look at and souvenirs to buy because the lunchroom also doubles as a small store. The coffee was pretty good and just as the hot chocolates and the latte machiato it was served neatly. Overall worth a stop to get some drinks if you would like a break from driving.