Heb je tulpen?

'Heb je tulpen?' is one of the extremely useful phrases that Niki and I practise from time to time in an attempt to boost my love's Dutch language skills. 'Heb je rooie tulpen? Heb je blauwe tulpen?' She could certainly have employed this phrase this weekend...

On Monday we decided to venture into the tulip fields some 45 minutes from Amsterdam. My love so much wanted to see tulips fields! What we hadn't realised, or at least I hadn't stopped to think, was that on Monday (which in the Netherlands is referred to as 'Second Easter Day') everybody in Holland goes out to see the tulips at the Keukenhof in Lisse, especially when the sun is out, which it - uncharacteristically- was. On their website this 'spring garden' informs visitors this day was one of the 5 or 6 busiest in the year ....

Anjès spent the Easter weekend with us, from Saturday to Monday evening. She drove up, and drove us around Holland ... very, very competently and safely. She's a great driver. Thanks, Anjès!

So, we had set off early, fortunately, but the mere sight of the rapidly-filling car park, packed with tourist buses and cars, and the queues at the entrance made us turn round and go into the pretty town of Lisse instead. We were hunting for some breakfast... However, in Lisse the entire population seemed to have turned into a congregation, as we found most of the locals in Church. (There's a bout 15 churches of all kinds of denominations in Lisse!) Hungry though we were for breakfast, everthing was closed and eerily quiet in this tourist town, even at 10 a.m.

On our way out of Lisse we stopped at the side of the road and (illegally) jumped a fence to sit down among tulips (together with other adventurous tourists who also baulked at paying E14,50 pp for the Keukenhof...). Photos of this will be put on the blog as soon as I get my hands on them - they are at present in Portugal, on Niki's camera...

Later that day Anjès was so kind as to help drop Niki off at Schiphol airport.