Advertisement
Aalsmeer
This gives some idea of the enormity of Aalsmeer flower auction.Wednesday 7th May
Our initial destination this morning was the Aalsmeer flower auction. In what must be one of the most bizarre trading systems in the world, flower growers from the EU and nearby countries, send their flowers to Aalsmeer, where they are displayed, bid for and dispatched to the purchaser.
Gijs Pol, a computer analyst who has attempted to close the market and create an online version, gives the following example:
"Consider the path a bouquet of red roses takes on its way from a grower in Kenya to a wedding in Rome. A jet flies the flowers from Africa to Amsterdam. They are trucked to Aalsmeer, where they are auctioned to an exporter. The exporter ships them by truck to a wholesaler in Italy, who sells the blooms to a florist. By the time the roses reach the reception, the process has taken at least a quarter of their month-long lifespan, and the price has grown three fold."
So what actually happens at Aalsmeer?
The flower market is lodged in one of the largest under cover open areas I have ever seen; at least three MCG.
Tractors pull "trains" of 20 or more
Flower carts
The train of pink flowers shown here is moving into the auction room. carts of roses, tulips, geraniums, Gypsophylla (backing material for arrangements ), and dozens of other flowers, around in the huge warehouse space. Cart after cart of flowers are wheeled into one of the auction rooms (and are wheeled out sold inside 30 secs max, often much faster). In each of the auction rooms there at least two large screens (displaying different lots to be bid on) which display the supplier's name, the flower name, a picture of the flower, the flower's classification, any inspection remarks (length, weight, size, etc), country of origin and the container code. In the centre of the screen is a circle of dots. The top of the circle is labelled 0 (100) and the bottom 50. A little red dot skips around this circle at a very rapid rate showing the current going price which continues to drop until a buyer presses his button at which point it stops and the lot has been sold The flowers just purchased roll out of the auction room into the mayhem of the hall.
There are 13 of the large screens at Aalsmeer; usually 2 to a room, but one room we viewed had 3.
Small stand
Orchids
Every single one of those white boxes contains orchids... on motorized vehicles also zipped around the hall in apparent chaos, most often transporting one or two carts of flowers, but somehow managed to miss each other often by mere millimetres. They transport the carts coupled on behind them to the edge of the hall and charge back for another load. The "delivered" carts are wheeled off into trucks.
The auction is a Dutch auction (no pun intended) meaning that the auctioneer starts the batch at what he thinks is a little over a reasonable price, and the price rapidly drops until someone bids, who immediately wins the auction at their bid price. Dozens of buyers sit on a raked stand (with a flat desk-top in front of each), judging the blooms, banging away at calculators, lap tops and purchase buttons.
By the end of the morning they will have purchased around 19 million cut flowers and 2 million plants.
Annually Aalsmeer sells 1 690 million Roses, 540 million Tulips, 450 million Chrysanthemums and many millions of other cut flowers.
The auction starts at around 6.00am. Not being that keen, and not being a buyer, we rolled up at around 8.30am and thing were still in
Aalsmeer
Aalsmeer quite literally stretches for miles! full swing. When we left the hall at around 10.am things were just starting to slow down, but only marginally.
The auction area is well set up for visitors (tourists). You walk in designated areas along a wide, secure permanent platform about 4-5 metres above floor level.. So the chaos in the hall is directly below you and can be easily viewed without you getting caught up in it in anyway. The sides of the bidding rooms are glass and you can see inside clearly.
Outside the bidding rooms are speakers which explain how various sections of the market work, a different section is explained outside each room. These are in a variety of languages including English.
As with all tourist destinations you exit via the gift shop. The site also has a cafeteria that is open to the public, so you can have breakfast there after viewing the auction.
Back in the car Marion had a long drive to Reims in France (passing through Belgium enroute).
To start with the drive was fairly taxing, traffic being heavy and there being a plethora of trucks, but fortunately it slacked off quite a bit as we
Orchid Box
A couple of orchid boxes were open - just to show what each white box contains! approached Belgium.
We crossed in to Belgium and there were many signs near the border to alert of to this facts, but there were no signs alerting us to what the new top speed was (as there had been at the Dutch border). We assumed that the top speed remained
120 km/h.
Just short of Mons, Marion decided that she needed a break from driving and it was the other side of lunch time anyway, so we stopped in at a fast food joint on a run-off provided along the motorway. As with many of these stores it was in the middle of nowhere; but a number of trucks were pulled up so we took that as a good sign.
The outside was certainly unappealing, and the bare wooden chairs and tables on uncovered floorboards inside didn't raise our opinion at all. We were served by a thin, scrawny but aggressive individual who just about shouted commands at us. (I don't know if he was speaking Flemish or French).
We eventually conveyed that we wanted some food and pointed at some sausages. He may have failed Food Management 1, 2 &3, but he certainly had passed
Flowers
Masses and masses of flowers, all packed into carts. Food Handling as he picked up the sausages in his bare hands (the invention of tongs has yet to reach Belgium) and threw them on the stove. We weren't game to watch any further and retreated to our table.
Eventually has presented us with 1 metre long baguettes with a sliced in two sausage, smothered in sauce. (Not our best meal to date)!
As it was hot we decided we could each follow up this repast with an ice-cream. Owen went over to the ice-cream cabinet which had a clear top, just like those in Australia. However, after a few tries, Owen found that he was unable to make the top budge.
Thin, scrawny and aggressive (hereafter T, S & A) wandered over and brandished a key which he then used to unlock the case. He hovered over the box like a hawk, watching Owens's every move carefully to make sure Owen didn't secrete an ice-cream up the arm of his T-shirt. As soon as Owen had selected his ice-creams T, S & A re-locked the ice-cream cabinet in a flash; before even holding his hand out for payment.
Marion felt like going over and saying
Blue Roses
A vivid blue aren't they? These spectacular roses may be natural or dyed, but either way they are stunning! "Hey mate, we're Oorstralians. We don't flog ice creams".
When we had finished the ice-creams we left the wrappings from both the baguettes and ice-creams on the tray which was on the table. T, S & A let forth a stream of Flemish/French that we interpreted as meaning something like "Put your bloody rubbish in the bin". We were all a bit over it by this time and continued walking out the door.
It wasn't a long time before we reached France. It had a clear sign indicating the top speed on the motorways was 130 km/h, 90 km/h on non-motorway country roads and 50 km/h in built-up areas.
It wasn't long after entering France that we met our first French tollway. We had to press a button and take a card from the machine (similar to the card you take on entering an underground car park.) When we exited the tollway, we had to insert the card to be read (again similar to paying for parking a car) and paid the money to the attendant in cash, or swiped our credit card (depending on what line we were in). We also encountered a second type of
???
We have NO idea what these thing are - never seen them before! tollway where you paid a set price to the attendant upon entering the road.
Some French tollways can be expensive; the maximum we've encountered so far is 11 Euros.
In spite of the tolls we really enjoyed the French countryside. From the top of a series of rolling hills we could see a patchwork quilt of green (crops or grass), yellow (rapeseed) and light brown earth. The earth was an unusual colour which I guess might be because of the chalk in the area being mixed with it; certainly a colour earth I have never seen in Australia. And although the green was not quite as vivid as that in England, it's a brighter green than is even seen in Australia. There were a number of low hedges separating some of the fields from one another and copses of trees all over the countryside. There were also small villages or hamlets, similar to Germany, but lacking the distinctive church spire with the bulbous top that is ubiquitous across the whole of Germany.
A major difference from Australia and Germany was the paucity of farm animals; the animals we did see were an, to me, unusual white breed
Colour!
The beautiful flower carts fill the Aalsmeer warehouse with a rainbow of colour. of cow and goats. Very few sheep.
Finally we reached Reims late in the day ready to re-start our French adventures on the morrow.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.358s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 11; qc: 52; dbt: 0.1412s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
