Keukenhof, The Netherlands

If you love flowers, color, natures beautiful creations and sweet-smelling air, the Keukenhof Gardens is the place for you to visit.  It's gorgeous, so gorgeous in fact, that I couldn't snap a bad photograph! The Keukenhof gardens are open from late March to Mid-May and totally worth a visit.  If you want to make sure the flowers are in bloom, you can check the weekly bloom report here. 

There are over 70 acres of parkland filled with more than SEVEN MILLION bulbs-tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, narcissi, gladioli the list goes on and on... 

The park has a large team of gardeners (roughly around 30) who start planting in mid-September and since all of the bulbs are planted by hand it is a three month project.  New grass is put in every year to make a nice green backdrop, and at the end of May all of the bulbs are dug up and destroyed! Oiy Vey! Then cycle begins again... 

There is nothing like the scent of fresh crisp flowers!

 I love all the different designs they do...

Every year Keukenhof has a theme for their designs.  This year was "The Golden Age" the era when Holland became rich through worldwide trade. There were over 100,000 bulbs used to create the centerpiece of the exhibit.

There are over 100 different companies that show off their varieties of flowers at Keukenhof.

I learned from my friend Paige that the gardeners use "lasagna" layered planting: bulbs are planted in several layers- the late flowering flowers on the bottom, the April flowering bulbs in the middle, and the early-flowering bulbs on top.  Yay for a variety!

There were several greenhouse pavilions inside that were packed with flowers!  In the Orchid House there were orchid arrangements, potted orchid plants and hanging orchid shrubs.  

 I think I know where the Bellagio gets their flower ideas from...

Look at these!

 Yep, this is an orchid!

Back outside we go.  They have some pretty awesome parks in Keukenhof, this one was a little scary, I was nervous about Jordan falling in!

 I love this planter, I wanted to take it home, I was told "NO".

We went into Willem-Alexander Pavilion to see thousands of tulips.  Get ready for picture overload, they were too beautiful to collage:

These tulips just make you photo happy I'm tellin ya!

Seriously, I am SO HAPPY!

These were some of our favorites:

Tulipa 'Color Burst'

 Tulipa 'Perfect Love'

Tulipa '20-Z-96-9'

 Tulipa 'Starline"

Photo-op on the flower boat

When we left Keukenhof we stopped by the flower fields to get one last breath of sweet flower air. 

 I loved this trip, these gardens are a place to visit, and go when the flowers are in bloom.  Well be back!

The Hague, The Netherlands

Welcome to Den Haag (The Hague) the home to many of the Netherland's judicial and administrative buildings, foreign embassies, and the UN's International Criminal Court.  The city has beautiful architecture, lots of pretty parks, museums, and it is bustling with people.

I love this door, so charming!

Our first stop was to the Mauritshuis Museum.

We got our trusty map guide, and they provide you with a free audioguide app for your iPhone, so off we go to see some art!

The exhibit rooms were gorgeous, and we pretty much had the museum to ourselves...so nice!

The paintings in the museum honor the Dutch Golden Age featuring artists such as: Johannes Vermeer and Rembrandt van Rijn-I didn't know they were Dutch.

Have you read the book The Goldfinch?  Does this Carel Fabritius painting look familular?

This was Jordans favorite painting, The Young Bull by Paulus Potter.  If you look closely the detail is amazing, you can see the flys swarming around the young bull and it is so lifelife.  

And this is mine, Girl with a Peal Earring by Johannes Vermeer.  She is so beautiful, and her pearl earring was made with only two brush strokes!  I think she is more special than the Mona Lisa.

Just around the corner from the museum is the Binnenhof.  It looks like a palace, and is where the Dutch government resides, where the Dutch throne is located, and where the Queen delivers her speech to parliament every year. 

Take a look at the fountain, it is really beautiful with the golden sphinxes

Walking around the beautiful Hofvijver lake in search for some lunch...Some gorgeous weather and it looks like Hogwarts on the water!

Mmmm... what should we have for lunch?  How does raw herring sound?  I am all up for raw sushi, but I wasn't so sure about this; although there is no better place to try this Dutch specialty than along the coast so we gave it a go.  

We ordered up one herring for each of us.  It is pickled, covered in onions, and eaten whole. 

You pick it up by the tail, and shove it in your mouth!

Yum much? Check out how Jordan liked it...

We strolled down the busy shopping streets, checking out the local scene

  I love the bike contraptions people make for side cars, so awesome!

We ended our visit to The Hague with a visit to the LDS Temple!  

A fun day sight seeing, now onto Amsterdam!