The Garden of Europe

After spending four precious days with us, Mimi and Papa continued on to the second leg of their European tour on Friday, giving me the day to clean and shop in preparation for Chris' stay in our Little Dutch House.  Her plane was scheduled to arrive early on Saturday morning, and we had big plans for the day - a visit to Keukenhof Gardens, the world's largest flower garden.  It was Chris' only request for her visit to Holland that we visit Keukenhof, and I didn't want to miss it either, so it only made sense that we start her trip with a stop at the Keukenhof.

 

And so, after a dark, foggy, early-morning drive to the airport, I picked up Chris and whisked her off to Keukenhof, located just a short 25-minute drive from Amsterdam.  We arrived about an hour-and-a-half after the garden opened, allowing us a bit of breathing room to tour and photograph the gardens before, as Chris so eloquently put it, "it got shit crazy busy".  I had expected a fair amount of crowding, as Deb and Steve had reported that it the garden was packed after they had visited Keukenhof on Wednesday.  It became so crowded with tourists shortly after noon that it became unbearable, and Chris and I left to make our way back to Delden, hoping to stop to catch some pictures of tulip fields on the way.

 

Crowds aside, visiting Keukenhof, also called the "Garden of Europe", was an amazing experience.  We spent several hours in the park, taking in the beautiful gardens and taking so many pictures that our cameras hardly stopped clicking.  Yet we are certain that we missed sections of the park, and we never made it into any of the indoor exhibits.  If it hadn't gotten so "shit crazy busy", we could have spent the entire day there!  After all, approximately 7 MILLION flower bulbs are planted there each year.  That's a whole lotta flowers! Though I must admit that we were definitely more "snap happy" at the entrance to the garden than at the exit, when we were annoyed with the crowds and when we were satisfied with the HUNDREDS of pictures that we were able to take when the park was emptier. 

 

Had we spent the entire day at Keukenhof, we wouldn't have had the opportunity to take some of the photos that we did when we stopped/trespassed in a tulip field on the way home! 

 

Please enjoy this sampling of the hundreds of pictures that I took, and please click on each picture to enlarge it for viewing!

 

 

For as beautiful as the grounds are, I had expected the entrance to the park to be grander than this!

When we first hatched the plan to visit Keukenhof immediately after Chris arrived in Holland, I was a bit concerned that she wouldn't be able to make it through the day.  I know how tired I have been after that flight, and I'm not sure that I would have wanted to go tiptoeing amongst the tulips first-thing after landing!  Chris was a trooper, though.  I'm pretty sure she was on a tulip high. 

This is one of the first of HUNDREDS of pictures that I took of the flowers.  I was able to take most pictures without any people in the frame, but they simply couldn't be avoided in others.

Keukenhof is truly a feast for the senses; the entire park smelled like spring!

Signs posted all over the park ordered visitors to stay off the grass; I may have tiptoed on the grass in spots to take some pictures.  Tiptoed.  It's not like I was picnicking on the grass as we saw others doing!

As someone whose pictures normally feature the same two adorable subjects, I was a bit outside of my comfort zone photographing flowers.  I found myself wishing that Maddie or Will were there to photograph in the middle of the gardens.  But then I remembered that THEY'RE TODDLERS, and realized that we would probably have been asked to leave the park had they been there, tearing flowers out of the ground, climbing up statues, and screaming.

The garden was filled with varieties of spring flowers that I have never seen before.

I've always liked tulips, but after our stay in Holland, I have it bad for them.  If only they were as beautiful and *cheap* back home.

It was a beautiful day for visiting Keukenhof, though they skies did grow cloudy later in the day.

Each year, the Keukenhof chooses a theme for the gardens.  Since the theme for 2014 is "Holland", the tulip took center stage in many of the displays.

Oh, hello, happy daffodils!

Don't these look like candle flames?

Rows upon glorious rows of tulips

It seemed like the perfect time to visit Keukenhof; most of the flowers were in bloom.  Had we visited a week later, I'm not sure that the flowers would have been quite as vibrant.

Visitors had the opportunity to walk across these stationary "lily pads" in a large pond.  Though the stepping stones didn't move, neither Chris nor I trusted ourselves not to fall in...so we took pictures of all of those who were braver than us and moved on.

I'm not sure what this flower is, but I want it in our yard back home.  It's so sweet! 

Lovely

I saw some of the reddest tulips at Keukenhof than I have ever seen!

Most of the grounds were covered in flowers already in full bloom, but we did find a few beds of flowers that were just sprouting up from the soil.

I used a 50mm lens to get some closer shots of the flowers.  I was envious of Chris' macro lens!

This tulip reminded me of a peony!

The trees were also in full bloom - and full fragrance!

Since I didn't have the twins along to plop into scenes, I had to make do with Chris.  Not quite as cute, but at least she stood still for me!

It was here that we ran into three people from Texas who were killing time at the garden before they needed to catch their next flight out of Amsterdam.  Not a bad way to spend a day!  Beats sitting around in the airport!

This garden was found at the main entrance to the park.  I remember that because it was here, around the time that I took this shot, that it got "shit crazy busy".  It took me a while to take this picture between the crowd of people.

Daffodils rank right up there with tulips as flowers I adore.  I need to plant them in our yard.  I have lived too many springs without them. 

Apparently, I really liked this particular garden.  I had about 53 pictures of the garden and the flowers within it.  I have spared you many of them.

Pretty, pretty!

It's Chris!  Taking a picture of a very strange tulip!

Weird, huh? 

I love this one.

Had the twins been along, I would have asked one or both of them to sit on the path leading through this garden, but alas, I had to settle for Chris.

So many tulips!

At this point, we knew we'd be leaving soon.  There was a long line just to enter and climb to the viewing deck of the windmill.  Once we were up there, we had to throw elbows around to just to get a couple shots of the tulip fields below.  We could have taken a boat ride through the fields...if we had been willing to wait several hours for the next available tour. 

A boat tour through the fields would have been an experience, but I'm happy with our visit to the Keukenhof and our stops in and near tulip fields on the way home!