The Noordwijk-Haarlem Flower Parade

My sister Diana and her friend Caroline planned their visit to Holland to correspond with the famous Bloemencorso, or "Flower Parade."  As beautiful as the tulip fields are, the farmers don't grown them for the flowers.  The money is in the bulbs, and in order to strengthen them, they have to cut all the flowers.  One day the fields will be a carpet of tulips, and the next day the "guillotine" will have gone through--off with their heads!  The Bloemencorso developed as a way to use the millions of cut flowers.  They are pinned onto elaborate floats and paraded over thirty miles through the villages and cities in the flower-growing region.  Today, though, most of the hyacinths, tulips, and daffodils used in the parade are grown specifically for that purpose.  The "tulip guillotine" didn't visit until a few weeks after the Bloemencorso.

We were going to watch the parade in the evening, and so during the day we went to the Rijksmuseum in  Amsterdam to see more Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Frans Hals.  Then we went to the huge Albert Cuypmarkt, an outdoor market where we ate Dutch Boerenkass, or "farmers cheese," a warm Belgian waffel with chocolate and cherry preserves, and super-sized stroopwafels fresh off the iron.  I saw an orange vendor advertising his wares with a photograph of Queen Beatrix drinking a cup of orange juice in front of his stall--good marketing strategy!  We stopped at the Begijnhof courtyard and then headed on to Zaanse Schans so that Diana and Caroline could see the windmills.  The entire village smelled like chocolate--as if brownies were baking in the oven!  There is a huge cocoa factory in Zaanse Schans.

We went back to Amsterdam for an Indonesian rijstafel feast.  This was Diana and Caroline's wonderful idea.  Indonesia used to be a Dutch colony, and so there are tons of Indonesian restaurants in Amsterdam.  At a rijstafel they bring you about a dozen different dishes and you share.  There was chicken, meat, vegetables, and eggs cooked with coconut milk, peanut, lemon grass, and different spices.  It was delicious!

We went to Heemstede, a town close to Haarlem, to see the Flower Parade.  This is a picture of one of the main canals in Heemstede.

The theme of the parade was "Musicals," and they played theme songs as the huge floats rolled down the narrow roads.  We were so close to them that we could touch them.  In fact, we could have easily jumped on and joined Dorothy Gale waving from this Wizard of Oz float!  The mosaic of flowers making up the colors in the floats was unbelievable, and as you can imagine, each time a float came by the air smelled like hyacinths.

There were some really creative floats, including the Singing in the Rain one, where the "rain" was made from plastic vials filled with water, suspended in the air, and each holding a daffodil.

There were several cars in the parade with incredible arrangements of flowers covering them.  I don't know how this one could even see through the window to drive!

Pretty unbelievable.

The parade ended in Haarlem, and they left the floats in the center of the city so that people could come see them the next day.  The Lion King float was wonderful.

Here is Wicked in white, purple, pink, and blue hyacinths, along with green seeds of some kind.

Diana and Caroline with the White Rabbit from Alice and Wonderland.  Even his whiskers are made from hyacinths.

When Mary Poppins came by in the parade they played a recording of "Supercalofragelisticexpealidotious" (spelling?!) in Dutch!  How hilarious to hear that song in Dutch!  The star is made from daffodils.

And this was probably our favorite character on the floats--the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz.  I'm a little partial to the Cowardly Lion because I played him in sixth grade during the big, end-of-the-year musical at my elementary school!  The mane made out of orange and yellow double tulips is incredible.