Tulips, Tulips, Tulips!!!

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Geo: 52.3718, 4.53025

Fingers crossed we get to see some tulips today! We're heading down to the Keukenhof Gardens (Website). These gardens are a tourist destination! We passed a few random fields of flowers along the way. The car park was packed... I think there may be a lot of people here. Yep, thousands! You can't believe the number of people. And at the same time, you can't believe how beautiful this place is. Even with people from around the globe, the flowers were brilliant! We walked around these massive gardens. It would be easy to spend an entire weekend just here. Lily was a trooper. With all of the people and having to stick close. Good dog. Wanting more fields of flowers we went for a drive. In the area of the gardens are many of the fields. We noticed banners outside the gardens for bike rental complete with a map of the fields so we knew they were close. We zig zagged back and forth through the area. Most tulips were still in full bloom. The daffodils and hyacinths were done though. We did notice that the peonies would be next. I don't think its possible see all in bloom at the same time.

After our drive we went back to Zandvoort. We tracked down the local market and picked up sandwiches and snacks to take down to the beach. The beach in Zandvoort is huge. There are restaurants for food and drinks. They also rent lounge chairs and wind screens. By the time we got there most of the people had left so we had the beach to ourselves. We watched the sun set and had our snacks and sandwiches. Lily did her classic beach run..... top speed. She was pretty tired at that point so she was content to sit with us and watch the people.

The next day we were heading home. Before going we walked over to the dunes for one last run. Lily met lots of other dogs and had a good chase with a big white Sheppard. The drive back was nice and it was warm enough to sit outside on the ferry back.

It was so nice to have a car in the Netherlands . It really is a pretty country albeit flat. We saw so many old windmills with sails out and turning. This is something we have never seen before. And staying in a different town was nice. Zandvoort is a fantastic seaside town and we will definitely go back again.

Enjoy the photos.... there are LOTS!!! And check out the movies at YouTube

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