(Smooth) Keukenhof Garden, the world’s largest tulip garden near Amsterdam, opened its doors on Thursday for its 75e anniversary and expects hundreds of thousands of visitors to admire its seven million flowering bulbs.
Located in Lisse, the 32-hectare park planted with millions of colorful tulips and other flowers is a popular attraction in the country, with some 1.4 million visitors last year.
“This is my first time here and I’m so excited to attend the 75e birthday,” Rocelle Brewer, 41, who bought a pink dress embroidered with flowers for the occasion, told AFP.
“It’s really nice here. I love the smell of the air,” added Cam Cutton, from Colorado.
PHOTO NICK GAMMON, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The 32-hectare park planted with millions of colorful tulips and other flowers is a popular attraction in the Netherlands, with some 1.4 million visitors last year.
“We went around and were like playful kids, ‘Oh, look at that flower! Oh, that bridge!” » laughed Esther Brandt, 37, from Cologne.
Nisha Kasiliya-Ravindran, a 37-year-old tourist from Madras in India, said she was “a little disappointed” because many of the tulips have not yet fully bloomed.
“We also hope to go see bulb fields outside so we can see tulips,” she told AFP.
The opening of the park also gave rise to action by the environmental movement Extinction Rebellion, seven members of which briefly demonstrated, naked, in front of the gates, to protest against the use of pesticides in bulb cultivation.
“These beautiful, colorful fields hide the enormous damage caused by bulb cultivation. Insects, birds and plants are dying in droves due to agricultural poisons,” said Lydia Steutel, a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion in a statement.
The Keukenhof Garden was established in 1949 by a group of tulip growers and exporters to display their products.
In addition to tourists from over a hundred countries, it has also attracted monarchs, with several kings and queens from European countries coming to attend the opening gala over the years.
This year, a golden yellow tulip, named in honor of King Charles III, will be one of the attractions of the exhibition, also marked by a concert with Dutch opera singer Laetitia Gerards, to celebrate the garden’s 75th anniversary.
It will remain open until May 12.