The Land of Tulips
Each year we spend a few days with our BFF group, travelling to different places. After a 2 year wait due to covid, we were finally able to realize this one to northern Holland. With Lisette and Ard being Dutch and from the area, they often spoke of how beautiful it is in tulip season. Lisette then organised this funtastic trip for the six of us! Some of her cousins live around the areas we visited and she arranged for some amazing things for us to do and see.
Our base was in the very pretty town of Edam which is only a 30 minute drive from Amsterdam. It's famous for its Edam cheese - one that's sold all over the world. The Dutch people love their cheese and on average, they eat around 14kg of cheese per person a year! Here we did some cheese tasting and it was amazing to see how many different types and flavours they offer. From mild to stronger aromas, using different herbs like rosemary, pepper, chilli, and honey, and making them from the milk of cows, sheep and goats.
With our bags full of yummy treats we strolled through the town and came across a very special church with a slanting tower and a very small annex. We were pondering as to why this would have been built this way, when a really friendly guy opened his garden gate, let us into his charming garden and house that was set right along the canal, and told us all about the history of this church. He also gave us a little tour of his old, authentic house that is typical for Holland and just gorgeous! These Dutch people - we love them with their friendliness, openness and easy going nature!
We stayed at the De Fortuna Hotel in the old part of the town. It's a real gem of a place in a quiet area and right beside a beautiful canal. You can watch the old sailing boats swaying gently or just enjoy the birds floating peacefully on the water. This boutique hotel consists of 4 historical houses where the rooms are and each room is different. The restaurant offers fabulous fine dining in the evenings and the terrace/lounge area outdoors is a great place to chill after the days' adventures 😃.
The perfectly flat landscape with thousands of canals running through it is truly special. About 26% of Holland lies under sea level! Dams were constructed to build and grow new land area and the canals are used for transport, water diversion, and agricultural irrigation including of course the tulip fields.
The climate in Holland is ideal for growing tulips and cultivating the various types of bulbs. The ground is of a sand-clay consistence and the climate provides a long spring & autumn, a warm to hot summer and a mild winter, with temperatures only very rarely dropping below 0°C. In the 16th Century tulip bulbs were exported from the Ottoman Empire to Holland.
Then, enthusiasm was so huge it caused a first economic bubble. The tulip-mania ended in 1637 when the first stock market crashed, namely the tulip-stock-market in Alkmaar. So when you stand in front of one of these fields, you really do get a feel of the euphoria that would have been felt in those days! If there had been any tulip bulbs for sale when we were there (Easter 2022), we definitely would have bought the whole load!
To get the best out of the scenery, tulip fields and coastline, Lisette booked us each an E-bike in Callantssoog. There are over 37’000km of bike-paths in Holland and with the country being flat, this is the perfect way to discover! Our trip mid April was a little bit early for the tulip season, but we were very lucky to see many beautiful fields in bloom due to the warm weather they had in March.
We had a truly great and fun ride biking from field to field - the colours and variation of these flowers were stunning and we spent lots of time just taking it all in and photographing from different angles. So much natural colour was just perfect for the mind, body and soul! It's advisable to do some research on where the fields are, as they are spread out and you need to know where they are to find them.
Keukenhof is a very well-known tulip park for visitors and tourists where you can see around 3000 different types! On our trip the Anna Paulowna Park was the one we visited as it was on our bike route and it was beautiful - hardly any tourists and lots of variety and brilliant colour!
After a coffee-break with delicious Dutch apple cake off we road again towards the coast. We took a mini-ferry across the Noordhollandsch Kanaal and arrived at the Den Helder-Callantsoog sand dunes soon after. Biking along these dunes and taking in the fresh air and scenery was a beautiful and freeing experience. We knew then that we would one day return there with our campervan, rent some bikes with a little dog-trailer for our labby, Mara and do this again 😊.
Callantsoog is one of oldest and most charming beachside resorts in Holland and has the highest sand dunes too. There are four beach entrances „Abbestee“, „Seinpost“, „Dorpsplein“ and „Kiefteglop“ leading to a great and miles long sandy beach.
There are some really cool and beautiful beach pavilions that are put up each season along the beach. For the end of our bike-fun-adventure, Lisette had reserved a table at the 'De Strandtent', where we had a spectacular view of the sunset and enjoyed some very yummy Dutch specialities for dinner.
The next day Lisette had arranged a private tour of Jan de Wit's tulip farm with him and his wife, Annecatrien, who is her cousin! This was very honourable and exciting and we had an absolutely unique time with these lovely people! Jan told us many stories of his life and career as a flower and tulip-bulb dealer. His company celebrates its 100 year anniversary this year. They've received lots of awards and were also given the Friendship India-Holland award by the Indian Prime Minister!
We drove to one of his fields where the bulbs are cultivated for export. On this field alone, there were 2 mio. tulips! The bulbs are harvested each year, then the best bulbs are sorted out and replanted again in the autumn. It takes 5 years for the bulbs to reach the right size for sales.
After the tour of their company and fields, they showed us around the old town of Enkhuizen. This was a really pretty place and many of the houses have a tilt or lean in any which way. It's funny on the eye and looks as if the building's just about to topple over! But there are good reasons why these were built that way: the houses have very narrow, steep staircases and it's just too tight to transport large furniture up and down.
Also, when there's flooding from the canals, there's not enough time to get their possessions up to a higher floor. So these buildings have a pulley system attached to the gable on the top beam in order to hoist their possessions and goods up on the outside! Another reason is that due to the boggy swampy ground and foundation, the houses had to be built on wooden posts. Over time these would rot causing the houses to tilt.
Enkhuizen is located right at the Ijsselmeer, the largest lake in Holland. This used to be part of the sea but was separated off by a 29km long dyke. We were lucky enough to watch a bridge at Drommedaris being raised and opened up to let a boat through. The most famous building in Enkhuizen from 1540 was once a fortified tower and used to protect the harbour entrance. We really enjoyed this place, the weather was great and again, there were hardly any tourists. There really is so much to see and do in Holland!
The cheese market in Alkmaar was another interesting place we visited, although it was packed with visitors and tourists. Lisette had arranged for us to meet with another of her friendly cousins to show us around. This market began operating in 1365 and is now run as a traditional cheese-market as a tourism attraction.
You'll see how the teams of official guild cheese-porters carried the huge farmers' cheeses on barrows that weighed up to 300kg out from the weighing machine to the market stalls ready to sell. The Netherlands is the most densely populated country in the world. And in tourist season it can get pretty much jam-packed! Maybe this is one of the reasons that the Dutch people are the tallest on earth, to ensure they get enough air to breathe 😉!
The Dutch are a very sociable folk and they know how to party! We saw a good example of this in Volendam, the most famous fisherman’s town in Holland. Sundays are a big get-together at the harbours pubs and bars for the youngsters who're in partymode! Other things to be done there include boat trips to islands and tours of historical ships.
We did do a very typical tourist-thing as Lisette had organised a photo-shoot for us in traditional folkwear - which turned out to be very funny with loads of laughs! 😃
Another highlight was visiting the town of Hoorn. A beautiful place and a fantastic harbour with many sailing yachts. In the center there's the Roode Steen Square where we chilled at a bar, watching the world go by. You can also see the Statencollege and the beautiful De Waag built in 1609, where they weighed cheeses throughout many centuries.
Down near the harbour is the fantastic Marque Restaurant which is where we enjoyed a true gourmet-dinner, bringing another brilliant day to an end.
On our last day, we stopped off at Zaanse Schans on our way to the airport. It's a lovely place where you can meander along the walkways and see the traditional water-windmills, houses, taste all kinds of chocolate, drink coffee or tea and just generally enjoy the vibe. You'd think it's an open air museum, but it is actually a normal village and people live there.
Coming to a close in this blog - here are a couple of fun Tulip-Facts:
It's a known fact that the Japanese are generally smaller in size than the Dutch and interestingly enough, the Japanese prefer the smaller tulip variations
The oldest surviving type of tulip today, is the single early tulip 'Lac van Rijn' from 1620.
"One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name"
(The Call - Thomas Osbert Morsdaunt, 1730-1809)
Travel blog and travel guide by Aaron Matzinger & Clare Walker
© Aaron Matzinger & Clare Walker