As we started to descend towards the Schiphol Airport, I was peeking through the plane window and could not hold my excitement:
-Look!!! Tulips!!!
The colorful strips of tulip fields started to appear out of nowhere and stretched to the horizon.
On the train ride from the airport, we passed more tulip fields and every time I would point out of the window and exclaim like a delighted little kid:
-Look! More! More tulips!
The locals on the train smiled, knowing that this excited foreigner had come to their country to see the annual flower spectacle.
Visiting the Netherlands for tulips and especially the famous Keukenhof - “the most beautiful spring garden in the world” - has always been one of my bucket list items and this dream finally came true last month.
The planning for the quick “tulip” getaway to the Netherlands began last November, right after we planted our own tulip bulbs. By a stroke of pure luck, we stumbled upon cheap tickets to Amsterdam (under $500) that we immediately purchased. In addition to airfare, we also reserved tickets to Keukenhof and booked housing in Leiden, just a short bus ride from the park. And then the waiting game began.
I waited for the trip impatiently and constantly wondered if we had bought the tickets for the right dates. The peak time for tulip blooming varies and largely depends on how warm or cold a preceding winter is. Normally, the season lasts about 8 weeks, from mid-March through mid-May. We had tickets to Keukenhof for April 26 and hoped that we timed the visit not too early but also not too late. In the last couple of weeks before the trip, I would constantly check the Keukenhof website for updates regarding what was in bloom and whether tulips would be blooming during our visit. Finally, after months of wait and anticipation, we were in the Netherlands and on our way to see the tulips.
Our visit coincided with the Dutch national holiday – King’s Day, which was exciting (we went to Amsterdam for one day to join the festive crowds); however, to escape the holiday madness, we chose to stay in Leiden rather than in a busy Amsterdam. Leiden is an excellent base for visiting Keukenhof and the nearby tulip fields. The bus from Leiden Central Station goes without stops directly to Keukenhof and gets you to the entrance in under 30 minutes. Getting to the park from Amsterdam takes approximately the same amount of time, and probably even longer depending on where you stay in Amsterdam. Leiden also has much cheaper accommodations. We were able to rent a room in Leiden’s historical center for only $40 a night, which was a steal and considerably lower than in Amsterdam. But an even bigger reason to stay in Leiden was that it is an absolute gem of a Dutch town with its historical center, lovely canals, and one of the oldest universities in Europe, giving the town youthful energy. Having visited Leiden in the fall of 2018 for half a day, we fell in love with the town and longed to return and spend more time in it.
After the first night in Leiden, in the morning we walked to the Central Station and boarded Bus No. 854 decked out with flower themes and information about Keukenhof. A short ride through the Dutch countryside later, we were in the town of Lisse, right by the entrance to Keukenhof. There were multiple flower beds right in front of the entrance full of incredible tulips and I spent at least 20 minutes inspecting every flower until Julia finally dragged me towards the park, claiming we wouldn’t have enough time to see everything at the rate I was moving.
We walked in… and I was speechless.
On the way to Keukenhof, the sky was grey and overcast. Yet, when we entered, as if this was deliberately scripted and staged, the sun came out and illuminated the sea of magnificent tulips in the park. In the Disney movie Coco, there is a moment when Miguel crosses the bridge to get to the Land of the Dead, and the world he enters is magical and colorful. I had nearly the same supernatural experience at the entrance gate of Keukenhof where for a minute, it felt like we walked through the gates of heaven. To describe or illustrate the experience properly, I do not have enough words in my vocabulary or pixels on our camera. For hours, we were surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of types of tulips of different colors, shapes, and forms. Triumph tulips, double tulips, fringe tulips, lily flower tulips, parrot tulips – I did not even know so many different types of tulips existed. Oh, and the names: Ballerina, Candy Apple, Green Mile, Fly Away, Foxtrot, and hundreds and hundreds more. We roamed the park and could not get enough of the beautiful flowers. The hype around Keukenhof was well worth it and exceeded all our wildest expectations. No wonder it receives more than 25,000 visitors daily. What we initially thought would be a 3–4-hour visit, ended up being a full 9-hour day. We left the park around 6 p.m., exhausted and extremely happy. The total number of pictures on our devices exceeded a thousand (!!!) which took us days to go through and properly sort out.
Yet, visiting Keukenhof was not the only tulip-related activity we had. On the last day of the trip, we did probably the most Dutch thing - we rented bicycles and explored the countryside including the nearby tulip fields and tulip centers. One of the stops was at Tulip Experience near Keukenhof. The center was a fun and informative place to learn about the tulips. It had a mini-museum, from which we learned the history of tulips in the Netherlands, the details about the tulip growing process, and everything else tulip-related. But more importantly, outside, it had sections of beautiful tulips planted for people to stroll around and take pictures. We roamed the fields and enjoyed this gorgeous flower quilt. Despite the gloomy weather and dark clouds above, the tulips were striking and colorful, creating a dramatic contrast. We spent a couple of hours there and did not want to leave. Once again, the number of photographs we took was overwhelming, but we could not just stop taking them. Another tulip center we dropped by was Tulip Barn, also with sections of beautiful tulips planted for people to explore and take pictures. And then the tulip fields.
Interestingly, at the end of April, although we still found plenty of strips of blooming tulip fields, especially closer to Keukenhof, most flowers in the fields were already gone. We wondered why there was an abundance of blooming tulips at Keukenhof and other tulip centers, while most of the fields were already empty. We found the answer at the museum. As it turned out, most farmers in the area grow tulips not for flowers but for bulbs that they later sell. And to make bulbs grow, farmers “top” or remove flowers from the stem shortly after they bloom to change the direction of the sap flow, so instead of going to the chopped-off flower, it goes towards the bulb. It was eye-opening to learn about this side of the tulip-growing business.
We did not bring any souvenirs from the Netherlands. But while taking a break during our visit to Keukenhof, we stopped by one of the stands in the park and browsed catalogs of bulbs for sale. It is possible to order tulip bulbs right in the park and for them to be delivered to your home in October, a little before the planting season. We chose not to make any decisions on the spot but ordered bulbs from the Keukenhof’s website upon returning home. All I can say is that we cannot wait for them to be delivered in the fall and to see Ballerina, Candy Apple, Green Mile, Fly Away, Foxtrot, and many others bloom in our flower garden next spring.
