Netherlands. Keukenhof Park
Keukenhof Park is a world-famous royal flower park in the Netherlands. Located near the North Sea coast in the small town of Lisse, between Amsterdam and The Hague, we spent the most colorful day of our lives in this place. The numbers alone are evidence of this—every year, the park plants 4.5 million tulips of 100 different varieties...
You can visit this true celebration of life only between March 20 and May 20. During these two months, the park attracts over 800,000 tourists, which is about 13,000 people per day. Each year, a theme country is chosen and represented through national attributes in the park. In 2011, the theme country was Germany, as indicated by the flags displayed at the entrance...
The "Trabant" is a brand of East German microcars produced by the GDR from 1957 to 1991. This little car simply had to be part of the park's thematic setup, as it is a colorful symbol of the fall of the communist regime, along with the Berlin Wall...
The park's landscape design is highly impressive with its harmony. Despite the large number of tourists, walking through the park, you feel very secluded, thanks to its vast area of 32 hectares...
The colorful variety of flowers is simply mind-blowing, much more so than the "menu" in Amsterdam's coffee shops...
The multitude of bright colors contributed to an extremely good mood. We strolled through the park, photographing the flowers and ourselves against the backdrop of the flowers...
The park also has cute animals like sheep, which love to be scratched behind the ears...
And of course, the main symbols of Holland—windmills and clogs (traditional wooden shoes)...
After a three-hour walk through the park, we rented bicycles to ride around the surrounding area...
Renting the bikes until the end of the day and receiving a map with routes, we embarked on our exciting two-wheeled journey through the flower-filled fields of the area...
On the way, we asked locals for directions several times. They were always very kind and helpful. If someone didn't know the way, they would ask the next passerby in their language, and a whole group would help us find our way. In short, that day we encountered only extremely positive Dutch people...
Our planned route, 30 kilometers long, ran along roads lined with tulip fields and included a stop at the beach to visit the North Sea. Unfortunately, during our visit, the tulip fields were being heavily harvested, leaving only small shoots. This was done to grow tulip bulbs, leaving the flowering part of the plant unused...
When we were about a kilometer from the beach, we came across impressively large fields of white and yellow daffodils...
Turning onto a bike path with two-way traffic (an idea that seems far-fetched given our reality), which led directly to the sea, we found ourselves in a deserted and slightly hilly area. In the photo, the pedestrian path is to our left, and the car road is to our right...
Upon reaching the beach, we had a small picnic. We had no desire to go into the sea, as the water was very brown. So, Diana and I just waded in, although I had thoughtfully brought swim trunks and a towel in case I wanted to swim. We were also amused by a little Dutch boy who kept digging trenches in the sand, through which the incoming waves would bring water closer to our blanket. I joked that he had the blood of true Amsterdammers, who also built canals to reclaim land from the sea...
After spending an hour at the beach, we mounted our bikes and continued our route...
The second part of the journey was completely different from the first, as the fields began to delight us with blooming flowers. The dreaded machine that had mowed down the fields we saw earlier had not yet reached these...
The next field was behind the property of a local resident. Stopping at his gate, we asked if we could take photos, and since the Dutchman was mowing his lawn with headphones on, it took a few tries to get his attention. But once he heard our request, he kindly allowed us to proceed...
And this red tulip truly understands what it means to be different from the rest...
The field of scarlet tulips was right by the road, with full access. The cut flowers just lay along the paths running through the field, paths used by special machines for planting, tending, and harvesting the flowers. Diana collected a whole bouquet of cut tulips, which, after we put them in a vase of water that evening, continued to delight us with their freshness the next morning, adding a pleasant atmosphere to our hotel room...
The most stunning and vast field we saw was one of red tulips. Approaching it, we couldn't believe that the "flower killer" machine hadn't reached it yet. We could only imagine how beautiful it would have been if we had arrived a week earlier and seen dozens of such fields in bloom...
Comments
Post a Comment