The excuse of the trip was to visit a friend who had married a Dutch man. I went in the spring and only knew the topics of being a country of tulips and windmills. A tourist destination associated with canals, old picturesque merchant houses and bicycles.

The Netherlands is now the official name of this country, and I fell in love with its capital, Amsterdam, that it kicked me for its alleys, its red light district and its canals.

The most curious thing about Holland is that, despite being such a relatively small country, it offered me a genuine and universal mix of colors, shapes and traditions.