Keukenhof Gardens

Keukenhof at Stationsweg 166A in Lisse, South Holland, is the world's largest flower garden open to the public, covering 32 hectares and planted each autumn with approximately 7 million bulbs by some 100 specialist bulb growers. The park opens for a strictly limited season from mid-March to mid-May, timed to coincide with the tulip, daffodil, and hyacinth blooms. Paths wind through themed gardens — the English landscape section, the historical garden, the Japanese garden, and the Water Garden — interspersed with ornamental ponds, sculptures, and mature trees. Several large indoor pavilions display prize-winning cut flower arrangements and orchid collections, providing colour even on wet days. The variety on display runs to over 800 named tulip cultivars, from parrot tulips and fringed varieties to towering Emperor tulips that open the season in late March. At the peak in mid-April, the planted beds create long continuous drifts of colour across gently rolling terrain. Outside the park fence, the flat bulb-field landscape of the Bollenstreek (flower-strip region) stretches toward the dunes; cycling routes pass alongside working commercial tulip fields that offer a different scale entirely. Within Keukenhof itself, windmills provide backdrop shots. The park has a restaurant, three cafes, and well-stocked plant shops where bulbs can be purchased and shipped internationally. Given its popularity — around 1.5 million visitors per season — arrival at opening time or in the final hour before closing reduces congestion significantly.