Travel tips: Lisse & Keukenhof - a paradise of flowers

On route to Keukenhof you will probably drive through Lisse which has beautiful fields of hyacinth, tulips and other delightful bulb flowers.  Pre-Corona, Keukenhof had buses of tourists but now the park is less crowded which has its advantages.  

Keukenhof needs a full day to enjoy.  There is much to see and strolling through the carefully landscaped gardens is a joy.  Surprisingly, many Dutch people do not visit Keukenhof as they drive past tulip fields during their commute and know that in the one month Keukenhof is open, April to May, the place is packed with tourists.  Lisse and Keukenhof are about a 40 minutes drive from Amsterdam. 

                                                 

Bulb flowers are one of the biggest exports for the Netherlands alongside its cheese, dairy and meat products.  For good bulbs flowers are cut early and millions are used for the traditional flower parade "Bloemencorso" which rides on decorated trucks from Lisse to end in Haarlem.  

 

 

You can either view the parade from the road along its course or see it when standing still at its end point.  The scent of the parade is amazing and the artistry too. The two years I have joined in pre-Corona times the themes were Europe, with Viking and Dutch boats, the second, music.

 

      Massive flowers pinned with millions of individual ones. Imagine the work!

 

Viking Europe boat 

                              Bouquets on individual cars

 

The music note shows the individual white tulips

Seawater jellyfish

End point in Haarlem

  

       Happy spring!