There is a garden in the Netherlands, just outside the little town of Lisse. It opens for just two months of the year in the spring and in this short window it brings in almost 1.5 million people. They come from all over the world and they flock to this one particular place to see just one particular plant species, the tulip. I’m, of course, referring to the famous Keukenhof Tulip Garden and I became a part of the incredible statistics when I visited this garden on a family holiday towards the end of April.
The timing of the visit couldn’t have been better, especially since the holiday was booked several months earlier. In the run-up to Keukenhof, we were preparing ourselves to see lots of green and slightly-colouring tulip heads due to the prolonged cold winter that lasted into early spring, however it turned out that we visited at the end of week of very hot sunny weather. The wall-to-wall sunshine over that week shocked the tulips in to opening and flowering in time for our visit. I couldn’t have organised it any better.
Keukenhof is incredibly busy and there are large crowds. I like to take pictures without the distraction of humans but with visitor figures like this, it’s almost impossible, especially on landscapes and wider views. I hope the images in the gallery give a taste of this garden and its displays and while I haven’t been able to count all seven million tulips that are planted, I have taken pictures of the best ones.
Although we don’t go for tulips in our garden, after a visit to Keukenhof it’s proving very difficult to not be tempted to try at least some of the varieties that were on display there.
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