Keukenhof is about a 3 hour drive from our little house in Lombise, but it's mostly interstate, or the European equivalent, so it was smooth sailing once my son had the proper snacks and entertainment. The thing I found interesting about the drive, was that there are no real signs or billboards here. There are some states that have laws about the number of billboards advertising things, and it must be the same here, only more strict. Keukenhof is HUGE and famous, I was expecting to see something letting me know I was close, especially once we got into Holland. Nada. Anyway, I had Homer, our trusty GPS system that has rarely steered me wrong.
Keukenhof is set in the town of Lisse, Holland. Lisse is a little town that probably loves the money the gardens bring into the city during the spring, but is very glad to see the tourists leave after the bulbs have lived their lives. The traffic was crazy starting about 8km away from town and the traffic police were out at all the lights directing traffic despite the working lights. A little bit of madness, but no use sitting at a light when there isn't any traffic coming from one certain direction.
Before you even get to Lisse, you can see some of the impressive bulb fields. To look off to the side of the road and see row after row of color, whole farm fields of tulip bulbs, was a sight to behold. I remember driving in Kansas once and coming upon a huge sunflower field, it's similar shock. I can only assume that the bulb farmers plant them with equipment and not by hand, but I haven't been able to find any specific information about bulb planting on a large scale basis, and it is LARGE scale.
Really, I never knew that fields like this existed. Keukenhof does have some fields like this that you can see as you drive up to the park, but inside the park are more manicured gardens that are impressive in their own right. Tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, gladiolas all in gorgeous, ornamental displays all over this huge park.
There were many little fountains, statues and other picture taking opportunities at the park, but if you ask my son what his favorite things were, he'd tell you the slide and the windmill. Keukenhof was thoughtful enough to put in a park, complete with not-up-to-US-safety-standard playground equipment. Not to say that it isn't well made, but most playground equipment here has some major safety hazards that parents either have to get over, or be miserable. I choose not to be miserable, and my son has a great time and is a heck of a little climber. The windmill was safer, but my son was most impressed with the inside of the windmill where you can see all the gears that makes it work. Using these two things as a guide for my son's future, he'll either be an mechanical engineer or a stuntman.
Our trip was capped off with a trip to the souvenir shop where we came home with new shirts for Daddy and son, a bottle opener to add to the collection and a small spinner for the yard that looks like a windmill. (a boy's must have apparently) It was a great day, lots of walking and sniffing and fun. The drive back was peaceful since the boy ran himself ragged and fell asleep about 30 minutes into the trip.
Keukenhof was just lovely, and I'm hoping to drag my hubs back there later in the season to see some of the gardens that hadn't come into full bloom yet.
We got your post cards from here.. Gramma thought they were pretty neat.. I did go and look at the Flying Feet Flamingo Dancers site, but was disappointed there were no videos to see the flying feet (and tight white pants) : ) Thanks for your posts, it really helps us see what you are seeing and you really write well, very entertaining at 5 am when I'm awake. : )
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