Kasteel de Haar (Sept. 22)

After dropping Kelly and Austin off at the airport in Amsterdam I was pretty bummed so on the way back home we stopped by a castle I’ve been wanting to visit – Kasteel de Haar. We drove through Utrecht first and had hoped to grab breakfast but there was literally nothing open at 10 am on a Sunday, so we headed on to the castle and we’ll have to get by there again sometime. It is the largest castle in the Netherlands and was built in 1892 on the ruins of the original castle which was built in 1391. Because it is fairly new, when it was rebuilt it was fitted with bathrooms for each bedroom (plus 10 more), electric lighting, central heating, and a modern kitchen. This is my kind of castle! The guy who inherited the castle in 1887 – Etienne Gustave Frédéric Baron van Zuylen van Nyevelt van de Haar (longest name ever?) – was marred to Baroness Hélène de Rothschild and it was her family money that funded the restoration of the castle. The interior was beautiful and is so detailed (lots of ornamental woodcarvings, had painted tiles in the kitchen, stained glass, etc), but sadly you can’t take pictures inside. Morgan was pretty tempted to steal a few of the copper pots in the kitchen (they have a very extensive copper pot set, second only to the Queen of England’s’ set!), but since we had to check our coats and bags before the tour started he didn’t have a way to smuggle them out.   After we finished the castle tour we walked around the grounds to see the formal gardens, ponds/moats, etc. When we were headed for the car a man and his son had set up a frood truck so we had some pommes frites, a frikandel speciaal, and a hamburger (though I think it was made of the same meat as the frikandel).  Below are a few pictures of the outside of the castle and the gardens!