At the farm of flowers. Voorhout. Netherlands. April 23

So the Sunday of a long weekend in The Netherlands was spent enjoying the beautiful flowers. Well Tulips actually, in the main.

Tourism is back on track in The Netherlands, but there are still some keen prices to be found; " The Tulip Experience", 71 euros, luxury coach travel, all entrance fees, and a countryside canal "cruise"; well, it had to be done, a cheap day out in all honesty.

After a reasonable 8:5am start from Amsterdam a drive into the countryside to Voorhout, where the 3rd generation run family business of De Tulperij was the first stop.

Acres upon acres of tulips in bloom, grown to die, Daan Jansze, our guide and owner of the farm explained to the group that this is a bulb farm, not a flower farm.

The Tulip was actually originally a wild flower from Turkey.
The name 'tulip' came from the Turkish word for turban.

It is supposed that the Tulip arrived in Western Europe in the late 16th century.

Carolus Clusius, a Viennese biologist, and director at Hortus Botanicus in Leiden, Europe's oldest botanical garden was sent a gift of tulip bulbs from The Dutch ambassador in Turkey.

....and the rest, as they say is history.

Once withered and dead, like these Daffs, the plants are scalped and the bulbs harvested. The majority sold worldwide, the remainder, re-planted in the autumn to continue the cycle.

To get to the small show garden was like being in an airport where you are forced to pass through the duty free zone, I hate that, dont't you? Big corporations not enticing you to buy but route marching you through an area I certainly don't want to be.

6:00am I don't need some young girl on minimum wage, slapped up as though she were on a night out wafting a piece of paper soaked in "eau de unshaven armpit" under my nose, smiling suggestively at me in an attempt to get me to part with my dosh. Wrong tree barking up love.

Real men don't wear perfume.

This however was a joy to stroll through, bulbs, quirky items on sale and on display

It even had its own @pinmapple map!! With visitors from far and wide, Greenland to New Zealand, China to Chile.

Family photos through the generations

I enjoy imbibing vodka, but hmmmm! I think whoever dreamt this up must have put the recipe together whilst chilling in an Amsterdam coffee shop

The tiny show garden, is a real time real life product catalogue of some of the farm's finest tulips, in full bloom, orders are taken and can be shipped worldwide

All sizes from dwarf ground hugging strains to tall examples that really need wind protection.

Most gardens are not of a size to have a decent display, it is no good shoving the odd random bulb in here and there as is often seen, they need to be planted en masse.

I would like to say every colour imaginable can be yours, but as yet, despite years and years and years of hybrid breeding and cross pollination no one has ever grown either a true black or a true blue tulip. I am sure if it ever happens that person will become a millionaire overnight.

Wonderful

Next stop Keukenhof