Last week I went to a place in the Netherlands where most Dutch people have never set foot:  the Keukenhof, a huge, heavily landscaped flower park outside of Amsterdam.  At the entrance, a Dutch flag hangs alongside a German one, and inside the last thing you are likely to hear is the sing-songy tones of our favorite subject, here – the Dutch language.

I imagine that for some of the more far-flung visitors to the Keukenhof, the floral treasures inside are a sheer exotic pleasure: if you’re visiting from India or East Asia, a single tulip, not to mention thousands of them, is likely to be a kick.  If you walk to the edges of the park, you can look out over the fields full of tulips that are harvested for their bulbs.  These blankets of color are one of the loveliest things Holland has to offer, but they are short-lived.  By now most of the color is gone.

The Keukenhof is an odd tourist attraction in some ways:  after all, they’re just flowers.  But the space is pleasantly designed with a typically Dutch sense of tidiness and order.  Brush, sculpted into cones and mazes, gives a bit of an Alice in Wonderland feel to the whole thing, aided by patches full of African violets that you can sort of imagine springing to life and breaking into song.  Big warehouse-like greenhouse spaces, named for members of the Dutch royal family, hold orchids and strange accompanying set-pieces, like mannequins dressed in evening gowns and wearing pageant sashes naming them for species of orchid.

I’d recommend the Keukenhof to tourists, but it seems like they are already getting the message, so I will recommend it instead to Dutch readers of the blog, who may have stayed away out of that special stigma that keeps natives far from those sights that, for whatever reason, cry out to be seen.  This floral paradise might be just the way to while away a few hours on a Sunday afternoon, perhaps with your dog, who will be happy to be allowed inside.