Tulip-time in the Netherlands is a true sight to behold. The vibrant colors of the tulips, ranging from deep reds to soft pinks and bright yellows, create a stunning visual display that seems almost otherworldly. The neat rows of flowers stretch out as far as the eye can see, and the contrast of the vivid blooms against the flat, green countryside is simply breathtaking.
It’s no wonder that people from all over the world come to the Netherlands every year to witness the beauty of the tulip fields in person. However, the vast, vast, vast majority of them will experience something different: Keukenhof Gardens.
Mass-tourism and Google will almost inexorably lead you to Keukenhof. For what it is it’s quite impressive – a series of dainty, beautifully manicured flower beds set out in a genteel park. It’s not my cup of tea though as it lacks the majesty of a field of tulips AND it gets overrun with tourists: 1.5 million each year, funneled into just seven weeks of the year.
The reason you can’t easily visit a tulips farm is because they are genuinely working farms which don’t lend themselves to mass tourism, and so Keukenhof effectively becomes your only option for Dutch tulips.
Early in my tour guiding career (2015 to be precise) I befriended a family of tulip farmers who let me try out bringing my small groups (8-max!) to their farm. It appears I did NOT alienate them as all these years later they still allow me, and fellow guide Rachel, to bring our groups there.
If you’re also inclined to off-the-beaten-track experiences, my tulips tour might just be for you. Here is a detailed description of what you’ll experience on the day (and much obliged to Lilly Likes Amsterdam for giving me the opportunity to tell you about it). The highlight of the day is of course the private tulips field, but there are a whole host of other iconic Dutch sights – polders, dikes, windmills, and an impossibly cute old town. Here goes:
Waterland
Rachel – my fellow guide – or I will whisk you out of Amsterdam in about 10 – 15 minutes and onto the back country-roads of Waterland. This is the honest-to-God name of the area, and it’s as Dutch as it gets. This is the bit of the tour where either Rachel or I (depending on the day) will explain the Dutch national soul in about five minutes as we overlook a picturesque dike right on the banks of the largest lake in Western Europe.
I introduce this bit of spiel by joking that individually the words water and managment are not sexy and if you put them together even less so! Except in the Dutch context. Okay, maybe not sexy, but definitely fascinating. We’ll explain the beneath-sea-level thing, the eternal Dutch battle with water, and why the Dutch are just so damn direct. They’re all connected!
On this leg of the tour, you’ll pass through polders and over dikes, and through the tiny little rural village of Ransdorp. Once, I had a tour that was interrupted when a herd of sheep was crossing the road. I can’t guarantee that that will happen again (it does make for a good photo!).
Monnickendam
The second bit of the tour sees us stopping off at the Golden Age town of Monnickendam. .
Monnickendam is beyond picture-book! It originally dates to the 1200s, but the buildings in its centre all date to either the late 1500s or 1600s. It’s very well-to-do, has canals and a Glockenspiel on its 400-year-old bell tower. The Glockenspiel plays every hour on the the during the day – except when it doesn’t. Such is small-town life.
Monnickendam has everything to be a tourist town. It even sits on the edge of the IJsselmeer lake and has a harbour. Instead, it’s completely unspoiled as all the big tour companies stop at its next door neighbour – Volendam, and I get Monnickendam all to myself (but my groups are tiny and only come in April!).
We’ll take a leisurely stroll through the town and stop off at the Weeshuis to pick up a homemade apple pie that we will later devour at a windmill. The Weeshuis was originally built as a plague house in the 1400s and was later renovated and made into an orphanage in the 1600s. The Dutch upper classes of that era (the Golden Age) had quite a sense of noblesse oblige and most towns of any size had a reasonably-well funded orphanage – Weeshuis in Dutch means orphanage.
Today the Weeshuis is primarily a day-care centre for adults with special needs. But they also run a cafe and bake their own apple pie. And frankly, this apple pie is as good (if not better) than that of Winkel 43 – the famous Amsterdam cafe that Bill Clinton visited and which is now reputed to have the best apple pie in the region.
Beemster Polder & Tulips Farm
After Monnickendam, we’ll make our way to the Beemster Polder. This is a UNESCO World Heritatge Site and its importance lies in the fact that it was the first big lake that was drained using windmills. It was rather big – 27 square miles – and they drained it from 1608 – 1612 using 52 windmills. After that they parcelled it up into farmland (the bed of the shallow lake had uncommonly fertile soil) and recouped their money within a year. The Dutch are quite good at business!
Today, the Beemster is a very picturesque rural area. It has those typical flat green polders with the tiny little canals that are so characteristic of the Dutch countryside. In Spring it is even prettier than usual as there are a lot of tulip farms in the area, and you’ll have large swathes of pinks, and purples, and yellows, and many other varieties of tulips.
Betsie and Loek own one such farm, a farm that annually produces two million tulip bulbs. They’re rather modest about this number, as they also farm potatoes and milk, which goes to the nearby Beemster Cheese Dairy.
As you would expect those two million bulbs grow into two million tulips. They don’t however end up in a florist shop and then potentially in your flower vase. Oh no! Those flowers are beheaded and end up as waste – at best, incidendal compost.
This tidbit often elicits a gasp from women of a certain age and sensibility on my tours, and I admit I play it for all its worth. Betsie and Loek are interested specifically in the bulbs. By cutting off the flower and leaving the bulb in the groud for another two months, this allows the bulb to absorb all the energy of the sun and to grow bigger.
The bulbs are planted the previous November as small, baby bulbs. By harvest time, which is late June or early June, those bulbs have now matured into a much larger one which also yields (about) two baby bulbs. Betsie and Loek will then separate the bulbs, sell the large ones, and plant two million of the baby ones, and the cycle repeats the next year. The large bulbs are bought by traders who then sell them to wholesale growers who will plant the large bulbs in greenhouses the following winder and then grow the flowers that end in your nice little flower pot.
Hearing this explained in an actual tulip field is quite lovely, and I’m proud to report that on our tour we’ll be the only visitors.
Windmill
After that we head on to our final stop: A working windmill from the 1630s. All of the drainage windmills from the Beemster Polder are gone, but the neighbouring polder, the Schermer was drained during the 1630s using again, about 52 windmills. Of those, about 11 remain, including the one we visit.
It’s set in very charming countryside – near to three other windmills, and with another six visible in the distance if you take a good look. Once either Rachel or myself explains the intricacies of how a windmill worked, we’ll sit down at one of the picnic areas (inside and outside options) and enjoy a bit of grub: A proper Dutch pilsner (but not Heineken), a thick slice of the apple pie we picked up in Monnickedam, and a lovely cheese (and optional ham) sandwich from supplies we also pick up in Monnickendam.
And that will be that! Back to Amsterdam.
Visit: www.amsterdamtulipstour.com for more info.
Tulip season in the Netherlands is April.
