Doing Holland the tourist way

After living in Switzerland for 27 years I sometimes feel like a tourist when visiting my home country Holland. It  seemed  rather a good reason to go see Holland the tourist way…

I mean full style: tulips, windmills, wooden shoes and all. Since the relatives are rather photo-minded too they didn’t seem to mind.

 First trip: Keukenhof

This is Hollands famous springtime tulip flower garden, only opened from March 20^th to May 17^th.  As you can imagine we weren’t the only ones here, had to share the place with hundreds or thousands of mostly far Asian tourists, and it was only a “normal” Thursday ! We were kind of early in the season, too early to experience the 32 hectares in full bloom. Desperately looking for fields of tulips we had to be satisfied with hyacinths and daffodils in neat rows.

The weather wasn’t too spectacular either, sunny but only about 5°C and a frosty wind blowing from north-west, which almost made our fingers freeze off. So we took shelter from the cold in the big greenhouses they have, each one has a different name and a different theme. The first one we visited, the Beatrix pavillion, was full of orchids. Now I don’t particularly like orchids, most of the year they are just empty sticks, not very decorative in your home… But here, honest, I actually am inclined to become a fan ! They had dozens, in all sorts of colours and crazy shapes, beautifully arranged and composed in colourful carpets of colour and scent. These flowers are amazing !

Walking along we enjoyed the great scenery. Imagine they have 7 million bulbs planted here, 800 different tulip varieties ! Can you imagine us, crawling along the lawns trying to get a good low angle for the best shots. Looking like total idiots with macro lenses just millimetres away from the flowers, or almost hitting over some unexpecting Japanese tourists when turning around, forgetting our huge backpacks with many more lenses in it. Well, you have to make sacrifices for a good photo…

This is the official map of the grounds, doesn’t seem too big… till you start walking !

The next greenhouse, the Willem Alexander pavillion, was filled with all sorts of tulips, each on a square meter plot, one plot of colour and exorbitant shape beside the next. This would be a very bad place to be colour blind ! As you can imagine we spent ages here, nice and warm, no wind which makes the flowers move around all the time and makes it hard to focus, sun peeping through every now and then lighting up the scene, and so many different flowers, so many options of angles and composition, simply heavenly ! For more see the gallery at the end of the blog.

Next trip : Zaanse Schans

Now we don’t wan’t to be weak and spend our time inside in nice and warm greenhouses, so we went to see the “Zaanse Schans”. This is a collection of historic buildings, windmills and shops featuring traditional craft demonstrations. There are distilleries, cheese factories, wooden shoe workshops, you name it.

Don’t forget the souvenir shops and museums. I usually try to avoid the crowds, but that was impossible here. It wasn’t too bad though, the weather was ghastly once again, with threatening black skies ( which made for superbly dramatic photo’s) promising rain or hailstorms in the very near future.

The sparse rays of sunlight on the very green windmills made for great contrast. Admittedly, we did get a little wet, but we got some great images too, and the weather was probably keeping off a lot of people, which was good for us too. We loved it !

Final trip: Amsterdamse Waterleidingsduinen

Okay, for anyone who doesn’t master the Dutch language, this is a horrible word. It is actually the area that filters the drinking water for the town of Amsterdam, there are dunes and forests, and lots of deer, birds, sheep and foxes. As a wildlife photographer this sounded promising…. It was !

We hiked for about 4 hours, must admit a safari jeep is much easier, much more comfortable, and much less strenuous, but the fresh air, wonderful landscape and good company made up for all that. Of course we got very wet again, the Dutch weather forecast is as lousy as in any country I visited, instead of bright sunshine we got hail and rainshowers once again. The noise for the Zandvoort formula one race track in the background was a little odd, but see the positive side, the rain blended that out nicely… We did see lots of deer, ducks, birds and twice a very cute, and very curious fox.

The fox had probably been fed by ignorant visitors on other occasions, and came right up to us in the hope of getting a free meal. Forget it pal, we’re only here for the pics.

Thanks once again to Marc & Karin for guiding us and taking us to all these wonderful places, we love being tourists in Holland !  We look forward to our next trip, will try and find some more touristy sights to go see next time !

For our best shots check out the gallery : go to gallery