Today we braved the roads of Holland and drove to Keukenhof courtesy of Jolanda & Han who provided the car and bought us tickets. It’s also the first time we gave the GPS a run and it was very useful, even if I made a wrong turn. Keukenhof is a huge flower garden covering an area of 32 hectares with 4.5 million tulips in 100 varieties. Where Keukenhof is situated now, was a hunting area in the 15th century. Herbs for the kitchen of the castle of Jacoba van Beieren were also collected here; hence the name Keukenhof (Kitchen garden).
It’s a major European tourist attraction and has parking for hundreds of cars and dozens of buses. When we arrived it was already quite busy, but because of its sheer size the huge numbers of people were swallowed up by the numerous gardens, cafes and exhibitions.
The sheer number of garden beds with the many varieties of tulips was staggering, apart from the variety of colour, and multi coloured flowers, there were also ones with frayed edges and others that look like they had exploded. One exhibition centre was dedicate just to orchids, and they looked so perfect it was difficult to believe that they were real. There were also exhibition centres dedicated to queens Juliana (1948-1980) and Wilhelmina (1898-1948). In the Wilhelmina centre there was a ‘Nederland-Duitsland experience aimed at showing the synergy between the two countries and some of the differences. One of the most memorable was a scene of some Dutch people quietly drinking beer from small glasses and eating small blocks of cheese with toothpicks, contrasted with Germans gulping from massive 1 litre beer mugs and eating BBQ sausages. Sadly no documentary evidence of that though.
Frances though, did manage to get her first 'broodje haring' which is a pickled herring& gerkin roll – real Dutch food. I however, ate a small pizetta of chicken & basil – very nice thanks. Both of us then indulged in coffee and apple cake, also very Dutch, and also very nice – we may have some again.