Keukenhof, Lisse - Holland
Visiting Date April 29, 1997
Keukenhof Park is located at Lisse between the cities of Haarlem and Leiden, which is artificially constructed and famous for a nice arrangement of tulip flowers in a spring time. Many plantation fields of tulips can be found there from the windows of trains, where we would enjoy nice walkings in good weather conditions. It might be difficult to meet and talk actual habitants in foreign lands, although it might be splendid thing of the journey.
Although the previous day was warm and fair, when arriving Haarlem, that day was in a chilly rainy weather condition in spite of late April spring time. We must change over bus services from Haarlem to Keukenhof, and we had to wait for more than 30 minutes at the connecting bus stop. We tried to find out warm coffee shops there and failed, having a hard time by walking around outside in very cold windy and rainy atmosphere.
At last, we arrived there still in cold rainy weather, and we evacuated into the inside exposition center, paying the admission. Tulips, amaryllises, and other flowers were in bloom inside the hall.
The broadness of Keukenhof Park was smaller than expected, comparing with public parks, for example, Jindai Garden in Tokyo area. Other parks in netherland were not also big, because of the restricted territory. Keukenhof is, however, well cared and managed to have nice balanced arrangements of flowers and trees. Visitors would be satisfied with these atmospheres even by frequent visits.
The rains made greens very fresh even in cold climate conditions and flower colors like red, pink, white, blue, yellow were nicely contrasted with such fresh greens
The park was designed to enjoy flowers by taking pond-walk around artificial pond located in the center. The expansion plan was under construction to receive more tourists.
The rain had been stopping during the visit, however, it was still cold and very cloudy. We enjoyed pond-walking and other facilities insde the park. The various colored tulips, blue hyacinths, muscaries and others are beautifully arranged.
We found many donators' name plates in front of flower groups. The donations were assumed to be done periodically, we thought.
As blue colors were lacked in tulips, blue hyacinths and muscaries were planted together with tulips, offering nice color coordinations and harmony.
So-called "Cherry Chilly" weather are sometimes appeared during blossom seasons in Japan, and the coolness in that day was it. The weather conditions in high latitude of Europe were delayed by a month, comparing Japanese one. Many cherry blossom trees could be found even in north Europe, however, those species are double-blossoms. "Somei-Yoshino" most popular single-petal cherry trees in Japan could not be found, and are not loved ones due to lasting only for a week.
We walked around the entire park by appreciating tulips of red, pink, yellow, and white petals, purple hyacinths, and blue muscaries. It took approximately two hours including coffee breaks inside the cafeteria.
We had plans to visit Amsterdam in that afternoon, and decided to go out to Leiden instead of Haarlem, by omnibus. It took also approx. one hour.