It's open for just a couple of months every year, when the flowers - mostly hyacinths, daffodils, and tulips, are in full bloom.
When talking to my Dutch friends about the Keukenhof, I found that not a single one has ever stepped inside. Were tulips just too common in their minds? Perhaps when you grow up surrounded by millions of flowers, they aren't a big deal anymore?
As one of my friends put it - she envisioned the inside of the Keukenhof being filled with millions of tourists, all with cameras, bent over the flowers, completely oblivious to the world outside them and flowers.
Nothing could be closer to the truth.
And I am not innocent of this - I went through my entire media card in my camera in one day along with both batteries. I finally had to stop taking pictures, no, not because I wanted to, but because I had to.
But really, I could not help myself. The outdoor grounds of the Keukenhof are put together by very talented gardeners, who don't just plant the tulips and other flowers, but put them together into very artistic displays.
Unfortunatly, it has been a cold spring, so a lot of the tulips outdoors were still not blooming. But, there were tons of daffodils and hyacinths (which smell amazing, by the way), along with some cold-weather hardy tulips.
Many of the tulips remained in bud form:
As we ate lunch in the Keukenhof, we found that this duck made a living by sneaking up to people behind this hedge and darting his head out. I don't know if he was trying to be cute to earn bread, or if he had dreams of being a raptor.
There's the close-up:
Balancing on your toes while hovering overhead:
From the side:
In bud form:
With other tulips receding into the distance:
And from underneath:
Most of the flowers have very creative names.
Finally, we reach the apex of the show. Especially with it being so cold outside, most of the tulips are blooming inside the main "tulip greenhouse". There are literally thousands of variety of tulips inside - millions of flowers. The smell of so many flowers penetrates your very inner being.
My mom immediately took off, taking pictures as she went.
My dad looks a bit overwhelmed. He, however, took the longest of all of us to get through the greenhouse.
Later that afternoon, my mom told me "I'm exhausted. I can't take another picture of a flower." I actually reached mom's limit! It lasted only about 15 minutes however, until we saw the next interesting flower.
They even had the rare, man-eating variety of tulip.
Along with these spiny creatures.
So much red!
They even had some concept gardens on display.
All white:
Trailer home:
And the lazy-man's garden.
Some wild animal, loose among the flowers.
And finally, to round out the day, the obligatory "tulip and windmill" photo.
