Inside Keukenhof: How to beat the crowds at world’s largest tulip garden
Thousands of people flock to see the spring blooms at these famous gardens in The Netherlands. Here’s how you can beat the busloads of tourists.
Who doesn’t love tulips? Not many, judging by the huge crowds at the famous gardens at Keukenhof in The Netherlands. The key to enjoying this spectacular park of more than 32ha swathed in seven million intensely coloured spring blooms – mainly tulips but also hyacinths and daffodils, anemones, scillas and muscari – is to get there early. Or late. And avoid weekends.
One and a half million visitors come here in the eight-week season from mid March to early May. The convoy of coaches from Amsterdam and Leiden tends to arrive well after opening time, usually mid-morning, and so the period either side of lunch can be unpleasantly crammed. It is much more comfortable, then, to sit among the pretty and heavily manicured gardens with a packed lunch to wait out the crowds and enjoy a late meander when nearly all have left and as the sun begins to set.
I experience both early and late: arriving at 8am and leaving shortly after 6pm. Initially I am a little disappointed, expecting to see more fields of flowers in their stunning rows of striped glory, or even something like the ungroomed displays at Hampton Court Palace or Arundel Castle in Britain, not the immaculately landscaped beddings around large trees. They’re stunning, yes, but inauthentic.
But as I delve further into the park, especially to the south end where huge plantings surround a lake, the beauty of the place, originally designed to replicate an English garden as an adjunct to the 17th-century Keukenhof castle, combined with riotous colour arrangements, reveals the undoubted skill of the gardeners. They have carefully staggered various varieties of tulips so that there will be some on display no matter the day you visit. Glorious colour combinations – red set against white and purple; a gentle pink tulip among yellow daffodils – create a kaleidoscopic feast for the eyes. It helps, too, that it is a gorgeous 19C sunny day.
A warning, though, this place is tulip Disneyland for TikTokkers and Instagrammers. Twentysomethings cannot get enough photos and video of themselves standing in oversized wooden clogs, leaning on the windmill, or cuddling in a rowboat among the daffodils. Couples even lie on the tarmac to get picture perfect shots of themselves head-by-stems with narcissi. The park encourages selfies with various props such as giant cheeses, flower archways over velvet couches, and stepping stones across the water to enable “tiptoeing through the tulips”.
It may come as a surprise, then, to learn that this very Dutch experience is not Dutch at all. Tulips are not indigenous to The Netherlands and were imported in the 17th century from central Asia, where they had thrived in the extreme cold winters and hot summers. By 1637, a tulipmania craze was at its height in The Netherlands and France, where the trading of bulbs reached a frenzy and a single bulb was the equivalent price of a desirable house in Amsterdam, before the market suddenly collapsed, causing financial ruin to many.
In order to arrive at Keukenhof early, I’ve stayed for a few days at the charming nearby town of Lisse, from where it’s just a gentle 15-minute walk to the entrance, except several broken bones in my foot from an innocuous fall several weeks earlier means I am using crutches and a knee scooter.
However, the flat terrain and broad, smooth paths both to and inside Keukenhof make for an easy roll through the park. Wheelchairs are also available for hire for €5 ($9) at the park entrance for others struggling to walk.
One of the most enjoyable parts of the day is a 45-minute canal boat tour (€10) through the fields. While a cold snap a week earlier has delayed the blooming of the tulips, the hyacinths are in striking form, with rows of purple, white and pink flowers making for a truly pleasing scene as we pootle along spotting herons, oystercatchers and ducks. This is more like the experience I had envisioned.
To get the best view of the tulips growing in fields outside the park, it is easy to hire a bike for a few hours and use the brilliant and mainly flat Dutch bike paths to get around. There is a 35km Dutch Flower Route, a 15km Tulip Route or you can follow the Blue, Purple, Green and Red routes ranging in distances from 5km to 25km, all showcasing tulip fields and passing by Keukenhof as well as other attractions, such as the Tulip Farm, Tulip Barn and the Black Tulip Museum. The longer routes also lead through the dunes to the beach.
After having had my fill of tulips, the next day I sample Lisse’s pancakes, and chance upon a small festival in the town square where a brass band is playing. Visitors are invited to join the townsfolk queuing up to select a dozen tulips from crates, which are then wrapped in brown paper as a free memento of the day.
It is no surprise then that I leave The Netherlands basking in tulip bliss.
In the know
Keukenhof is 22km southwest of Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. It is open
until May 11, 8am-7pm; adults €20 ($36). Combined entry ticket and return bus from Schiphol Airport, €32.
Jacquelin Magnay travelled at her own expense.
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