+1. Zeeland looked almost exactly like Michigan, probably why the Dutch immigrants felt so at home here. I was bored in my three and a half days riding from the border to Amsterdam. If were going natural beauty, it is hard to beat Scandinavia in Europe, possibly bits of the Mediterranean, maybe a handful of places I can think of that I haven't been to, but most of Europe is pretty bland nature-wise.

And, as one that has been to both the Netherlands and Belgium, I don't know how you can rave about Dutch fries knowing what fries were like back in Belgium.

So where would you put your home country in this list of boring places on the planet?

That's what I thought I would find but I actually found there are really great French fries in The Netherlands. They are double fried just like in Belgium Crispy on the outside and soft inside. For people reading this would might assume this means greasy fries they would be wrong. Somehow the fries are never greasy. It's good cooking A restaurant employee told me they are no longer allowed to use 100% animal fat (I think traditionally they used ox fat) to fry food. It must now contain a large percentage of vegetable fat. This is due to health reasons. Personally I think the government should not force people to engage in healthy behaviors. Disseminating the best up-to-date health information is good but forcing people to do things is a violation of people's rights.

And they're selling 'Old Amsterdam' cheese to the tourists by the tons. It's not from Amsterdam, Amsterdam has no significant cheese history, and it's not old. Actually it's called 'old', because the Dutch word for old is legally protected for aged cheese (10-12 months) and Old Amsterdam is artificially 'aged' much quicker.

I like the aged ones, but if you got a 8-18 weeks cheese, raw milk (boerenkaas), preferably from an XL wheel (60kg) from grassfed cows on salty soil, it's certainly up there with the best. The creaminess of younger Gouda delivers taste beautifully, the problem is that the industrial ones have little tast to deliver, and only get taste from aging.

It's not due to health reasons but to health marketing. That's not done by law but by agreements between government and restaurant association, the government is happy because they can claim to make the people healthier and further promote their (false) idea that vegetable oil isn't really fat and animal fat is bad anyway. The restuarants can promote the fries and other deep fried products as more healthy. So 'not allowed' isn't really true, it's self inflicted.

Beef fat (not necessarily from oxes) brings out the taste of the potato. Some Belgians add a bit of horse fat to bring out even more taste, a lot of Dutch don't even use the right potato but use an easier one, or don't use freshly peeled potatoes but even frozen ones. The taste is seasonal anyway, potatoes change between harvest and use, in an average year june is probably the best month for fries. But fries don't need to be perfect to be very good.

The Netherlands has nature like a garden has nature, not like a forest. You can enjoy it for it's design and how well kept it is, but it fails as the great outdoors or a wilderness, it just isn't there. True nature, like primary forest, is rare in Europe anyway. Most forests are the product of human intervention.

Eh, I had teh opposite experience , but it may have been due to factors Stadjer listed.

Guess I never thought of it like that, makes sense tho! I was more referring to mostly endless flat farmlands.