The Netherlands or Holland?

It's time to post something about the next country we went to on our European trip 2011. But hold on... Should we say we visited Holland or the Netherlands? Which one is correct? Or maybe both? What's more interesting: where is this country’s capital?
It wouldn't be a mistake to say Holland, although North and South Holland are actually only two of Netherland's twelve provinces. So just to be sure that you are talking about the whole country I would recommend saying the Netherlands, which literally, and as we know geographically, means "the low country". The country capital is Amsterdam but the seat of government is The Hague. More on the topic here.

Departing London we took a night bus to Utrecht in the Netherlands. It was cheaper than a flight and saved us one night of accommodation costs. When we arrived the weather was still miserable and it was a Sunday. We were surprised to see all the stores and most local supermarkets closed. Our host (who was a foreigner himself) explained the situation: supermarkets have special operating hours on Sundays. They are open only for 4 hours from 4pm to 8pm. Furthermore, almost every shop and store we saw on Sunday was closed as well. This led us to wonder if the government actually sets operating hours on Sunday. The only place that was actually open to get a bite to eat was a small Surinamese (yes, you read that right) hole-in-the-wall restaurant that served tasty dishes from the former Dutch colony in South America. Suriname – supposedly – is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world, and the food on our plate reflected this. There was fried chicken, hardboiled egg, savory pancakes, lentils, noodles, roti, and on and on in went.

Utrecht was a nice town. It is smaller then Amsterdam but only 30 min away by train. In fact Utrecht is located at the center of the Dutch railway system so it's very easy to get to other parts of the country. Another advantage of this city is a thriving university which makes the city population younger and more diverse. One more thing we liked about Utrecht was that there were a lot fewer tourists comparing to Amsterdam.

Utrecht skyline

Utrecht's old town

UFO landed in Utrecht

Ice-cream truck

bicycles

bikes and canals

:)

scan a tree