Flower Fields and Keukenhof – Holland tulips, tulips, tulips!

Flowers are a big thing in Holland, and not just tulips, although those are quite plentiful. The Netherlands is the world’s largest exporter of horticultural items like trees, bulbs, plants and cut flowers.  But Holland is best known for its tulips.
Historically, tulips were very important to the Netherlands. After they were imported from Turkey in the mid-1500s, they quickly became very popular and people cultivated different color variations which people began to collect. Particularly desirable were unusual colors and odd stripe combinations.  At one point in the 1600s, there was “tulip mania” in which people were paying outrageous prices for tulip bulbs and even using them as money until the market crashed.  This might have been the world’s first “speculative bubble”.

Today, you can take tours to massive fields of flowers all around the country.  All arranged in beautiful stripes, some wide, some narrow, like Tom Baker’s scarf.  You are just surrounded by a riot of color.
Even today, in several places linked to Holland, like New York City (formerly New Amsterdam) and Holland Michigan they have tulip festivals.

These pictures are from the Keukenhof during high tulip season. Keukenhof (which strangely means Kitchen Garden) and is planted with millions of bulbs every year which leads to magnificent fields of tulips and other flowers as seen above.  It is only open during prime bulb bloom times – so late March to mid-May most years.  If you are in the general area of Amsterdam in that time period it is well worth the trip (and can be accessed by train and bus from the Amsterdam area).

Amsterdam is well known for its year-round flower markets, where you can buy hundreds of different pre-cut flowers as well as potted plants and bulbs.  Walking through one of these markets is a fun experience, and you’ll likely see plants and flowers you’ve never seen before
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This video is currently free for Amazon Prime members – it’s about Keukenhof and is decent. [Note: as an amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases]