After nearly two weeks of rain, the sun decided to make an appearance this past Saturday with temperatures finally reaching the upper 60s. We decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and headed to Keukenhof Gardens. Given the warm temperatures and the fact that it was the weekend, we assumed the place would be overrun with tourists and locals alike. There were certainly lot of people there, but nothing nearly as bad as what we envisioned, so I’m happy we went for it!
The Keukenhof Gardens are located just a 20 minute bus ride from Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport. They’re open only two months each year, spanning March to May when the country’s infamous tulips are in bloom. Spring is prime tourist season in the Netherlands thanks to the tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths with over a million people visiting the gardens, so hotels and B&Bs in Amsterdam get booked up early.
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Tulips, Daffodils, Hyacinths, oh my!
The Keukenhof Gardens is one of the world’s largest gardens, covering nearly 80 acres and home to over 7 million bulbs. The gardens are strategically planted so that something in each section is blooming at all times. Mid-April is the peak of the season, so we visited at just the right time to see the biggest range of flowers in bloom.
After our visit to Keukenhof, we rented bikes and went for a 2 hour ride around the gardens and the nearby town of Lisse. The Netherlands had an exceptionally long and cold winter, so there aren’t nearly as many fields of flowers as usual. Even so, we biked by many brilliantly colored fields and through a few quaint Dutch neighborhoods, stopping for photo ops along the way.
