Yesterday was certainly a highlight of my trip to Holland! My new friend, Nicolette Wuhring who lives in Amsterdam, picked me up at 9:00 to go the the Keukenhof, the beautiful bulb garden in Holland. It is only open from April to May each year and gets about 10,000 visitors. Begun in 1949, growers and exporters of bulbs each have a section of the huge park that becomes their visual display. Each section contains artistic creations with flowers and many places to take photographs. Each part of the park seems more beautiful than the next, and each has a special feeling to it.
Girls in their native Dutch spring dress greeted visitors at the gate.
I loved the butterfly in the tulips!
Also, in each section there are greenhouse areas–one for ever variety of orchid, another for dozens and dozens of different kinds of tulips, and others for arts and crafts and souvenirs. Throughout the park are bulb shops (of course, I bought several to bring home), coffee and waffle stands, outdoor cafes and children’s playgrounds. I especially loved Mitty’s playground, named after a huge white rabbit called “Nijntje” in Dutch which is the most famous toy in Europe. (Nicolette told me that “Little Kitty”, which is so popular in America, is a Japanese counterfeit of Nijntje, and there have been lawsuits about it going on for years!) At one point in the afternoon, we stopped for fresh raw herring which was served with chopped onions — a typical Dutch treat. I wasn’t sure I would like it, but I had to try it, and I did!
Does this look appetizing to you?
Of course, there are wooden shoes everywhere, a windmill, fountains, swans, and even a street organ.
We walked for five hours and still did not cover everything. I took almost 200 pictures — just could not stop admiring the awesome beauty and peace of this special place. And our timing was perfect. Each year at the end of May all the thousands of bulbs are dug up and refrigerated until the next spring when they are replanted. The work and the designs were awesome.
The flower-bulb sector in the Netherlands provides jobs for about 15,000 people. Together, they bring ten billion flower bulbs–70% of the total world production–to the market. These bulbs are grown on 20,000 hectares of land, which is the equivalent of 40,000 football fields. More than 75% of the bulbs are exported to over 100 countries. On the way there and back we passed miles and miles of fields of yellow daffodils, purple hyacinths, and every color of tulip, all in different colored rows like stripes. We stopped and I bought a bunch of two dozen pink, scalloped edged tulips for $7 to beautify my hotel room.
Other than losing the only jacket I brought with me (all we could remember was that we must have laid it down when we were taking pictures), it was a PERFECT day. Ironically, Nicolette told me that she had not been to the gardens since she was a little girl. Just like most of us, we often do not take advantage of the things in our hometowns that tourists come from around the world to view!
Today was filled with wonderful speakers whom I will write about tomorrow. I am just getting ready to go to a “Dutch night” party — what a JOY to be here!
