Thu 10 Apr 2003
Spring Vacation, Day 6: Aalsmeer and Keukenhof
Posted by Sandi Atherton under germany, the netherlands, vacation
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The major attraction of Aalsmeer, a small town of only 22,000 people, is their 5 day a week flower auction, which is the largest in the world. The auction happens at 7:30 AM and millions of flowers travel through their doors at every session. The entire operation covers 75 hectares and is quite a sight to see.
The auction room. The “clock” on the wall shows the current item up for bids, and the circle around the outside shows the current price. It counts down until all the flowers are sold. If you bid too early, you will pay too much, but if you don’t bid quick enough, all of the flowers will be sold to other people.
We arrived at 8am and were lead up to a catwalk above all the action. We could see right down on the tops of the flower carts and trucks that were hauling flowers to the auction rooms and then to the buyer’s lot. From the buyer’s lot the flowers were taken to nearby semis or airplanes to be delivered all over the world.
A view into the flower warehouse.
It was amazing to see how fast the carts move the flowers around and you have to admire their organization. How do they keep from getting orders mixed up! Keep in mind, there must have been hundreds of thousands of carts filled three and four levels high with flowers.
The experience left me with two big questions: Where do all those flowers grow and do people really buy that many flowers?
Continuing on the flower theme , we then started towards Keukenhof, a very large garden area that is landscaped with more than 7 million bulbs. The guidebooks show that many colors and varieties of tulips are used.
CeCe and Rissa taking their turn in one of the giant shoes that are available for photo ops all over Holland.
Unfortunately, It was pretty cold and most of the tulips had not opened yet but there were a few other flowers in bloom. The kids found a water fountain and despite the cold they still wanted to play in it. Ken and I pulled them away and into an exhibition hall that was filled with many varieties of Gerber daisies. This is one of my favorite flowers so I was overjoyed.
Later, we found another exhibition hall filled with more varieties of tulips in bloom than I could count. There were some that stood 3 feet tall, some with several colors on the petals, and some with blooms as big as my hand.
We took a break and dressed the girls in the beautiful dresses my mother made for them. We situated the kids in front of the tulips and clicked away on the camera. When I turned around I discovered a crowd had gathered. People we did not know were taking pictures of our kids, and one man even pulled out his video camera. I am beginning to think one day we will find our kids picture posted somewhere without even the rights to the royalties. One lady asked if the kids were wearing Laura Ashley. I wish I was quick enough to reply that they came from “Cotton Creations” which is a private label out of America.
One of about 500 pictures taken of our girls at this spot. (and we’re only responsible for about 10 of those pictures!)
Keukenhof has a windmill from 1892 that stands on its grounds and I wanted to get a family picture in front of it. However, we discovered when we went back outside was that it had begun to snow lightly! We quickly took a couple pictures of the windmill then ran back to the car for warmth.
At this point we are very close to the ocean and decided to take a drive up the coast to Haarlem. The kids had fallen asleep so Ken and I sneaked out of the car to take a quick peek at the beach and grab some delicious fried fish from a vendor that dared to set up shop in the cold.
Not much happened in Haarlem as it was raining and I refused to get the kids out in it. Ken walked the city a little just to see if there was something worth getting out to see. He reported that the downtown was cute, but surrounded by tons of construction, making the path difficult. Besides, it was late enough that the church and many of the stores had closed, so we just headed back to the hotel.
