I hope this is a good sign that I've started things off right, and that this year, I will have same opportunities to tiptoe through the tulips like I did last spring when I joined friends for three unforgettable experiences during the peak bloom. Albeit they were in very different settings, but with one common denominator: tulips!
DAY ONE: The girls and I rented bikes and cycled our way around the Bloembollenroute (flower bulb route), the most intimate and dizzying way to see the tulips fields. This area of Holland is only thirty minutes west of Amsterdam, near the sand dunes that run along the coast. The sandy soil is perfect for growing tulips. The bike paths are easy and obviously flat (this is Holland, after all) and very well marked.
The color explodes throughout a twenty-five mile loop between The Hague and Haarlem, which we were able to bike at a leisurely pace, stopping for a picnic lunch in one of the fields, and swinging by the beach for a sweeping view of the North Sea. We even made it back to Amsterdam in plenty of time to pick up all our kids from school.
National Geogrpaphic featured the Bloembollenroute as a "drive of a lifetime."
DAY TWO: Kuekenhof Gardens is situated smack dab in the middle of the the Bloembollenroute, but it couldn't be more different from farmer's fields I biked through earlier in the week.
The historic park in Lisse is only open eight weeks a year and gets over 800,000 visitors from around the world. More than seven million bulbs are planted in countless formal gardens, each year according to a new central theme. Can't wait for to celebrate 150 years of Van Gogh . . . this year's theme!
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| Tulips and cheese, of course. |
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| MIFFY!!! |
DAY THREE: This time, we got together with good friends and biked about 40 miles round-trip along the Amstel River to a darling little bulb garden for kids where they painted their own pots and picked the bulbs to fill them.
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