Keukenhoff

Our last day of the trip (my how time flies) was an afternoon trip to Keukenhof gardens to view the tulips. Since we had the morning free, I decided to take a relaxing morning stroll to the Amsterdam Flower Market. Many stalls were set up with various flowers, and a lot of bulbs and other strange looking seeds. There were also a lot of cheese shops where I finally found some delicious Dutch cheese in a decent manageable size to take home.
The bus trip to Keukenhoff took a couple of hours. We had been worried about potential rain in the forecast. The day ended up being sunny and beautiful. The first thing you see when approaching Keukenhoff is the fields of flowers that are grown for the bulb sales market. This year their spring had been quite cold, so the fields were not all in bloom but the ones we did see were magnificent. At the garden, we had an hour tour with a guide before some free time. She explained about how the garden is redesigned every year. There is a historical plot where the tulips are very short and close to the ground (and retain their scent). Everywhere we went was another spectacular display of beautiful bulb flowers. One area is called the Walk of Fame, where the tulips are all named after famous people. In one building is the displays of modern tulips. Here, all the flowers have really long stems, most of them are extremely uniform in colour and pattern. Some of them almost look like silk flowers, they were so perfect. There are also artistic displays in the center of the building. The far end of the garden is a mill where you can get a good view of the flower fields. On the way back to the main entrance, I passed the Inspiration garden, where they had set up many little vignettes, Delft pottery, sculptures, "Golden Age Amsterdam', beach and surfing, all surrounded by beautiful flowers. At one point, I just stopped taking pictures because there was just too much and I couldn't begin to capture it all.
In the evening, we were heading to Zwolle to see the DNB perform in an all Hans van Manen program. He is a choreographer better known to work with Nederlands Dance Theatre, one of my favourite companies. We had dinner at the theatre, our final wonderful meal of the trip. In this theatre, as at the Concertgebouw, the ticket cost includes a beverage at intermission. They served wine as well as soft drinks and juice. So civilized. We were thrilled to see our new friend Martin performing in Adagio Hammerklavier and again to see Michaela in the final piece.
Tomorrow, everyone heads off in different directions. A small group are going with Katherine to Berlin and Dresden, one person was heading to Provence, the rest of us going home. I definitely will be looking forward to joining Katherine on another of her trips soon.