Voice of Travel

Keukenhof Gardens in Lisse, Netherlands

If you love flowers, you must visit Keukenhof at least once in your life.  I must warn you though: once you visit, you’ll want to return.

What is Keukenhof? It’s the world’s largest flower garden and is in Lisse, the Netherlands, not far from Amsterdam.

Each year, between the last week of March and the middle of May, the gardens are full of beautiful, blooming flowers, including what Holland is famous for, tulips.

I can’t put into words how beautiful it is. I spent the day there last year, and would have happily spent many more. Already, I look forward to going back one day to see it again.

I spent the entire day wandering around, looking at the flowers, taking pictures of them… and just taking it all in. While walking around, you think that you’ve seen the most beautiful sights, but then you keep walking, realizing that the next thing you see is just as beautiful.  Make sure you bring a lot of memory for your camera.  I took over 900 pictures that day, if that gives you any idea how incredible I thought Keukenhof was.

How do you get there? There are a few different ways. If you’re on a cruise that stops in Amsterdam or Rotterdam, there is a good chance that your cruise will have a shore excursion to Keukenhof. Even smaller cruise lines will take you there, as it’s that popular throughout Europe.

Many people go there the way that I went last year, which is from Amsterdam. In Amsterdam, you can get a ticket that includes both bus transportation from Schiphol Airport (the Amsterdam Airport) to Keukenhof and back as well as your entrance to the gardens.

With such beautiful scenery, it's impossible to take a bad picture!

It’s not very expensive. It’s 21 Euro for the combination ticket, and 14.50 Euro for the admission ticket if you’re getting there another way and don’t need transportation.

As you can probably tell from these pictures, there are a LOT of flowers everywhere. While you probably know that Holland is all about tulips, there are plenty of other flowers at Keukenhof as well.

Besides having gardens of flowers that you can spend hours walking through, there are also indoor gardens with even more flowers.  One of them was full of orchids that were just amazing, and full of all of these different colors and shapes that almost made you think they were fake. That’s how impressive they were.

You’ll also be able to see the flower fields from afar, which are fields and fields of tulips. It’s a sea of colors, one right after the other. It’s pretty in pictures, but more awe inspiring in person.

For those that are looking for a little more than just flowers, each year there are many sculptures to look at too. They are very unique, and some might be considered a bit odd, but they are definitely something to look at!

If you’re thinking that kids might not be interested in visiting the gardens, think again. There are kid specific activities at Keukenhof, such as a small petting zoo, playground, jungle gym, and even a labyrinth. The restaurants even have kids menus, so you know they’ll be able to find something to eat.

If nothing else, think about all of the energy that they’ll burn walking around the gardens all day!

The colors of the tulips are just amazing!

They also offer a boat ride, for an extra price. Personally, I didn’t think it was worth it. While the boat ride was relaxing, and it felt good to sit down after so many hours of walking, I would probably not do it again.

Since you are in the water and are slightly below the fields of flowers that you’re going through, you can’t really see much of the fields at once. You mostly see the flowers that are closest to the water, and from an odd angle.

Then again, if the flowers had been in full bloom it might have been nicer. While the gardens were beautiful and almost everything was in full bloom, the flower fields where the boat ride went through were already past their prime, even though I went through them in the middle of the season, the middle of April.

More flowers seen while walking around Keukenhof

I will give you a huge warning though. Go as early in the day as possible. Try to get to Keukenhof first thing in the morning if you can. It gets really crowded.

You wouldn’t expect that gardens of flowers would get that crowded…but it does. The truth is, even though I love flowers, I had never heard of Keukenhof until I was looking into Amsterdam when I was booking my trip. But people in Europe have heard of it, and do visit. It is a very popular attraction, and since it’s only open about 2 months out of the year, people come in droves to see it. I purposely went on a weekday so that it wouldn’t be so crowded, and within a few hours of opening time, it was packed.

I was still able to have a great time, but by mid-morning it was impossible to get pictures without other people in them (unless you were just taking pictures of the flowers below you). If you wanted a picture showing what was in front of you, or around you…forget it.

So that is definitely once piece of advice I would take, especially if you plan on going in the middle of Keukenhof’s growing season, when the flowers are at their best.

These are some of the flower fields that you can see from one part of Keukenhof gardens.

Another thing that I suggest is to spend the 4 Euro and buy the Keukenhof Guide. Besides being a really great souvenir with lots of pictures around Keukenhof and a lot about the gardens, you’ll get a great map that you can take out of the book.

The map of Keukenhof is really great, because the gardens are huge, and if you don’t want to miss something, you’ll need it. The walking paths go every which way, and there were times even with the map that I thought I was missing something, so I couldn’t imagine not having it.

The pictures you see throughout this post were taken by me at Keukenhof last year. The flowers were just so beautiful that it was almost impossible to take a bad picture. Even someone who isn’t all that into flowers will have a great relaxing day walking around the flower fields, taking a look at all of the flowers.

If you’re going to be in the Netherlands at all during Keukenhof’s open season, I strongly suggest you go there. It will be an incredible experience that you can’t find anywhere else.

If you’re unable to visit Keukenhof but love the pictures of the flowers, or have already come back from a trip there and wish you had more souvenirs, I recently found a cool website that has Keukenhof mugs, posters, calendars, magnets, postcards, and more. It will make a great gift for anyone who loves flowers.

I really hope you enjoyed reading about Keukenhof, and all of your questions were answered. Please, feel free to ask any questions about Keukenhof that you still have, and I’ll try to answer them as best as I can.

Thanks,

P.S. If you’re not sure what city to make your home base while visiting Keukenhof, I would suggest staying in Amsterdam like I did. This way you’ll be able to see a lot of different places during your trip, and it will still be easy to get to Keukenhof when you’re ready to go.

If you’re ready to book your trip to the Netherlands today to visit Keukenhof, don’t wait any longer…and have an amazing trip!