Keukenhof

My thing for the day was a visit to Keukenhof, which I knew involved flowers, but not a lot else. I’d sort of assumed it was a garden of some kind, and while that’s correct, it’s not entirely correct.

The trip included a bus tour on the way out there, with commentary about the place; In simple terms, it’s a flower festival in a tulip growing area, lasting for 8 weeks, and we were in the last week. Outside of the festival grounds are the tulip fields, but almost all of that long stripes of colour thing was gone, because they cut the flowers as part of bulb propagation. You could see the occasional one that was presumably a late bloomer, and in one place a small patch of colour stripes, but most of the rest was green or brown.

The site is quite large, with a number of pavillions dotted around holding different exhibitions. Also there’s a windmill, which I somehow didn’t take a picture of from the outside.

Finding the bus was a bit chaotic. The instructions seemed to be directing me to somewhere a bus couldn’t get to, but it turns out that was directions to the tour company office, where I’d check in, show my e-ticket, then get a paper ticket & be sent to one of the bus station stands to get the bus. The stand was not well organised; It’s possible that there were calls for the 1200 Keukenhof tour going on, but it’s a bus station, so nobody can hear a damn thing. I showed my ticket to someone to confirm I was in the right queue, got told that I wasn’t, and got to the correct place; No idea how I or anyone else was supposed to know.

The tour commentary was mostly recorded, but the driver did the intro & gave some advice on the site. He also stressed that the departure time was the departure time, and he would not be waiting.

There’s not much I can say about it, to be honest. There are flowers and gardens, and paths you can wander down, and sculptures.

And at times crowds.

And somewhat inflated prices for food & drink.