The Keukenhof

One of my most favorite things tht we did was visit the Keukenhof Gardens in Lisse. I was so excited that we were visiting The Netherlands during the tulip festival, and the gardens and fields did not disappoint. The Keukenhof is about 20 minutes outside of Amsterdam, so we did this on our way out of town on Sunday. Oddly it was cool and windy this day much unlike the previous days. We arrived to find wooden shoes just past the entry gate...and this is what they looked like...
My favorite thing about the gardens are the red tulips. There are many different plants and flowers throughout, but the red tulips were gorgeous and are officially now my most favorite flower!

There was so much to see in the gardens...and the grounds were enormous! We also were not alone...there were like a million people there. Sometimes it was hard to get a good photo as random people would be in it. Here are some garden views...

The gardens were filled with some sculptures and Dutch novelties as well. I like this fountain a lot as it looks like a dandylion blowing away. Stuff like this was everywhere. And from here you can see the masses of people!

The theme was Amsterdam to New York...celebrating the 400 year anniversary of the Dutch settlement in New Amsterdam. So there were some American pieces as well. TJ was able to feel right at home with his ancestors in a teepee that we came upon!

Other novelties were a life size maze and a Dutch canal ride through the fields. And then of course a giant Dutch shoe! Mike sat in it for a photo opp to show his son when they returned to the States.

But my favorite piece of Holland was the traditional windmill, and to top it off it over looked the fields of tulips. We climbed up to get a better view...

And it was beautiful!!!! It also smelled amazing! Actually when we were driving through Lisse and we first saw all the rows tulips...we almost knew they were going to be there because you could smell them first. Again, the red ones are my favorite!

We had a good time there despite the large crowds and cool weather. I would certainly suggest visiting Amsterdam and the Netherlands between March 21 and June 1 to make sure you can see the tulips. For more photos of our trip you can visit TJ's flickr site, and they should be up by the end of next week...he has hundreds to edit.

Our next scheduled big trip is in May, and it will be the longest to date. We have sort of planned it to be our delayed "honeymoon". It will be eight days long and will start in Barcelona, Spain and then we are going on a cruise to the French Riviera; Cagliari, Sardinia; Palermo, Sicily...and then we will return to Barcelona and spend a few more days there. Other than that we will stay around here as the festival season is beginning this weekend!!!

Auf Wiedersehen!