The first time I visited Amsterdam was April of last year. Amsterdam is notoriously known as the “City of Sin”, and it may or may not have lived up to its name. I would say my friend and I had the full Amsterdam experience, but I’m going to keep it G-rated for now and save those other stories for a rainy day.
Moving on, visiting the Keukenhof Gardens is definitely up on my “Favorite Experiences I Have Had” list.
Keukenhof is the world-famous Tulip garden located in Lisse, South Holland. This occurs once a year, starting in mid-March and ending in mid-May. There are over 7 million bulbs planted, with more than one million visitors per year. I was determined to become one of those one million visitors. I had seen these gardens on Pinterest over and over again, and had excessively been “pinning” for weeks before our trip. I needed to finally see what it was all about. My friend and I found a bus that went out to Keukenhof, and my determination was becoming a reality.
As we approached the city of Lisse, rows and rows of tulips came into view. And, as a graduated History major who is always curious, I wondered to myself, why tulips? Well fear not, I have your answer and history lesson for the day.
Tulips were originally brought to the Netherlands as a wildflower from Turkey in the 16th century. They became so popular that a phenomenon called “Tulip Mania” started. Tulips were seen as a status symbol, and became so expensive that they were considered more valuable than gold. The market actually crashed because of these tulips. An entire market crashed because of flowers. Can you imagine? Because I can’t. The more you know.
Never in my life did I think I was going to be so entertained by flowers. My friend and I spent hours meandering through these tulips. We probably took 1000 pictures each, ate some Dutch waffles, and even got to sit in a life-sized clog. Life was good.
Now, I am going to let these pictures speak for themselves. I 100% recommend this to anyone that has this on their bucket list. I can safely say that the Keukenhof Gardens absolutely live up to their Pinterest expectation.
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