Noordwijk and the Bloemencorso

On Saturday the weather was very nice, so Laura and I ventured to Noordwijk, a beach town near Leiden. We noticed upon arriving at Leiden Centraal, where we intended to rent bikes for the short ride to Noordwijk, that there were an unusually large number of people around. When we walked outside, we saw obscenely long lines (I'd estimate 150 yards long) snaking around the front of the station; hordes of tourists were waiting to board the bus to Keukenhof (the Dutch flower "theme park"). It seems this weekend may have been the peak of the spring tourist season, probably because of the Bloemencorso (flower parade), which I'll get back to shortly. The massive crowds had already rented all the bikes, so it was the bus to Noordwijk for us.

The sun was shining at the beach, but the cold Noordzee (North Sea) wind was also blowing hard, so our time sprawled out on towels was short lived. But the wind couldn't also stop us from visiting a beachside cafe and playing a game of Gin Rummy.

After the beach, we joined other members of my research group at my boss's home to view the yearly Bloemencorso (flower parade), which is probably what drew the hordes of tourists to the NL on this particular weekend. The parade is an all-day spectactle that starts at Noordwijk and ends in Haarlem; we saw it near the end of its run in Heemstede at about 8pm. We found the flowered floats really fantastic, but the marchers seemed to have used up all of their energy at an earlier stage of the parade.


The theme of the parade was literary classics.


Here's Nijntje (aka Miffy), the Dutch star of over a 100 children's books (which are available in 40 different languages and have sold over 80 million copies worldwide).

We have officially deemed the worldwide US influence to be completely inescapable. In London, the entire New Year's parade was American high school bands. At Keukenhof, the theme this year is New York and there was even a flower-patterned Statue of Liberty. And of course, here at the Bloemencorso, a float featured Uncle Sam and our national anthem on repeat. (Now if only they liked us this much in the Middle East.)

The Bloemencorso - a short and sweet event if there ever was one - ended at right about dusk. We thoroughly enjoyed it and the invitation to watch it in Heemstede, where we were able to enjoy funny commentary from several co-workers who professed to have seen one too many flower parades. The count of flower parades for Laura and I, on the other hand: one. (Hopefully we'll make the Rose Bowl Parade our number two...)


More pictures from the day on Flickr...

Keukenhof Flower Garden

After visiting the flower auction, we headed to Keukenhof to visit the flower bulb garden. Mom, of course, was in heaven among all the flowers.

Here are my favorite photos from the day:









The rest of the pictures can be found here.

Bike Ride to Keukenhof

Last Friday - the start of a four day Easter holiday weekend (wohoo!) - Laura and I planned to revisit the Keukenhof Gardens. As you may recall, Keukenhof is the Dutch flower "amusement park" and according to them, the most photographed place in the world. We had originally intended to visit the park and bike around its immediate vicinity with the hope of seeing the tulip fields in bloom. However, when we saw the weather report (70°F and sunny!) we decided we had to really maximize our time outdoors.

And so it was that at about 10 am on Friday morning, we set off on a 45 km (27 mi) bike ride from Delft to Keukenhof. The journey took us up a main canal out of town ("Delftse Vliet"), through Leiden, and on to Lisse, the home of Keukenhof.

The entire ride from Delft to Leiden was full of really great scenery. We rode through Leidschendam, a very picturesque Dutch city (as almost all of them are) situated at a particularly wide part of the canal we followed from Delft. Here you see a picture of a traditional Dutch windmill overlooking the canal - here I believe called "Trekvliet" or "Zuidvliet" - and the city of Leidschendam.


We also had the pleasure of riding past many farms and seeing all of the newborn animals. Laura's favorites are the lambs, whose bleeting instantaneously turns her into baby-talking mush. At one stop, a baby lamb chewed on Laura's fingers through a fence while the amused farmer watched - unbeknownst to us at the time - from a higher vantage point while working on his boat.


When we did arrive at Keukenhof, we were not disappointed! The blooms have really started popping since we first visited 3 weeks ago. Below Laura is standing in a field of daffodils, which are everywhere in the Netherlands right now.



On our ride to Keukenhof, we saw many fields of blooming daffodils and hyacinths. The tulip fields in the Dutch countryside are - for the most part - not yet blooming (though they are getting close). Somehow, though, Keukenhof has a field of tulips blooming already; we took the picture below from a windmill platform on the Keukenhof grounds. Soon, the Dutch countryside will look like this all over.



We thoroughly enjoyed our return visit to Keukenhof and were there almost until the park closed. Unfortunately, we had to get back on the saddle for the 45 km ride back to Delft, but we were pleased to have exhausted all of the sunlight the day had to offer.

You can see Laura's pictures from this visit to Keukenhof or look at the ones from the previous visit if you like.

Posted by Matt

Tulip Bike Ride

We're breaking now from our regularly scheduled programming (a recap of Ireland and St. Patrick's Day) to bring you something completely different: pictures from our bike ride today through the tulips fields between Haarlem and Leiden.

We set out this morning on a 40km bike ride in abundant sunshine to see the tulip fields and Keukenhof Gardens. Even though the fields of tulips weren't quite blooming yet, many were colored with assortments of daffodils and crocuses.

About halfway through the bike ride, we pulled off to visit the amazing Keukenhof Gardens. While outside the tulips weren't yet in bloom, the huge conservatory buildings (named after Dutch royalty) housed a beautiful selection of tulips, crocuses, daffodils, orchids, and other flowers. The grounds of the gardens were magnificent and I can't wait to go back with my mom in a few weeks to see them in full bloom.

Of course, we also had to stop in the petting zoo to see the new baby lambs. Aren't they cute? The baby kids, as in goats, were a little more skittish and wouldn't let people pet them.

You can find the rest of our pictures from the bike ride here.