Day 10 Part 1 Tulips and Hyacinth Fields
Trip Start
Unknown
1
19
22
Trip End
Ongoing
Keukenhofmolen, Netherlands
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
I sleep like a baby and wake around 7:30am. I am all checked out and on the road by 8:30. I decide to drive into town and check out the sites. I am driving into town and see a field of Tulips ! Wow, it is amazing. I find a small side street so I can pull over and get out to take pictures. It is just an amazing site to see. I guess I said that already. But wow ! The air smells so fresh and sweet , better than any perfume you have ever smelled. It is a very light fresh sweet smell. The more I drive the more tulip fields and hyacinth fields I see. I have not even turned on my GPS and at this point I don't even care about it. I am just going to keep driving and keep looking. Seems like every few blocks I am pulling over and taking pictures. I drive through a couple of small towns and still just keep seeing field after field of tulips. I drive through a town named Voorhout, then I am on a street named Oosthoutlaan which takes me to Rijksstraatweg in Sassenheim. Still more and more tulips and hyacinths. Sassenheim is a very cute town. I go into the town center and park. I get out and again, can not quite figure out if I need to pay for parking. I take a few pictures and get back in my car to drive some more. Still not even thinking about my GPS, I just keep driving. I actually end up in Keukenhofmolen, which is where I want to go anyway. I see the signs for Keukenhof, which is the Park with 17 acres of Tulips. I am so excited. This is like a dream ! I spot a gas station, so I stop and get a diet coke. Just behind the station is more tulips and a wind mill ! Perfect, I take a picture of it.
I am seeing lots of busses, so I am thinking; those are tour buses for all these tulip fields. I decide to follow one. I am right! They even have stops where people get out and take pictures and can buy some of the tulips bulbs. The one I decide to follow has an accordion player that plays music when the people get out to look at the tulips and shop at the Tulip Bulb stand. It is soooo cute ! I take his picture, he seems flattered. I decide I like that bus, so I keep following it for awhile and stopping where it stops. I almost feel like I am cheating or something. Especially with the free music! Those people are paying money for that tour and it is not costing me anything. I spot a huge field of tulips and the bus does not turn. I decide I want to see that field, I will find another bus later. I turn down this little tiny road. The sign says Halfweg ( see bottom of this page ). Not quite sure what that is, but I am glad I turned here. I end up spending about 2.5 hours at this field and taking over 100 pictures. It is just field after field and color after color of tulips. I am just standing there in amazement of all this beauty. There are people fishing on one side because there is a canal and the other side has all the tulips. As I am slowly driving down this small road, I spot a white swan floating gently along the canal. I stop my car and take pictures of it from my window. She must have heard the camera because I can tell she spots me and I arouse her curiosity. She starts to swim toward where I am, I just keep taking shot after shot of her. She stops dead center of me and just stares at me. I keep taking pictures of her and it seems like she knows what I am doing. She swims around from one side to the other, so I can get shots of her from all angles. It is like she is a little White Swan Model and she is posing for the camera.
It's getting to be midday and I still want to drive into Amsterdam to see Dam Square. I am figuring I have 300plus pictures of tulips by now. Lol
