The Beautiful Keukenhof

Keukenhof sounded out like (KOO-KEN-HOFF) also known as the Garden of Egypt and is one of the world's largest flower gardens, situated in Lisse, South Holland, Netherlands. There are approximately 7 million flower bulbs planted every year in this park. But the park is only open from March to May. Such a small little window to see such a beautiful piece of the world right?! I have been living in Europe for about 10 months now and I keep hearing about these infamous gardens and I just had to see it.

I had been asking all the people I knew if they wanted to go, take a road trip for the day. But I absolutely could not find anyone. It was the last weekend of the season they would be open. Everyone was either busy or had already been or flaked on me at the last minute. So I decided to wake up Saturday morning at 6 a.m., grab some coffee, and take the 2 ½ hour drive myself. Whew, and what a drive it was!!! Traveling by car for over two hours one-way, through a country that is unfamiliar was quite an experience. It was invigorating to know that I could be confident and brave doing this on my own...and I know that this would not be my last.

So I finally arrived at Keukenhof right after opening hours. The parking lot was filling up quickly, tour buses were lined up along the front curbs, and the entrance lines were beginning to pile up. I was in line and excited that I would finally be seeing a world of thousands of beautiful different flowers. And by the way, I love tulips! They are my absolute favorite flower and while Holland is widely known as the Tulip capital of the world, I was thinking about how I am a lucky one today!

The views were outstanding, breathtaking, and unbelievable. Everything was blooming and perfectly situated throughout the park. There was so much to see and take pictures of that I know I wasn't able to capture every essence of it. I cannot even begin to identify all the different flower types and colors that I have seen. Tons of tulips, carnations maybe lilies. One thing that I have recognized being in Europe is that they have so many different strains of trees and flowers than in the United States. So it was quite hard to tell exactly what everything was but I can definitely see the similarities But overall it was a truly amazing experience to see all the work that Keukenhof staff put into creating such a masterpiece year after year.