The Quest began when a friend handed me a newspaper clipping and said “This is something for you!” The clipping told the story that for the past five years, on a specific Saturday, if you showed up on the Dam in Amsterdam you could take home some tulips. A kick-off for Spring by the Tulip growers. What stuck me was that I had never noticed such a massive amount of tulips growing on the Dam, how had I missed that? The article did not give much detail, rather a ‘heads-up’. A few days later in Amsterdam, I went to a food cart which had no customers but sat on the Dam. To the lady looking down at me, asked where would I find these tulips, as I could not see them? Looking at the pictures, you’d wonder how I could miss!
She had a good laugh and explained: On the specific Saturday, very very early, the trucks arrive and 200,000 tulips are planted in sand exactly where I was standing. A pop-up viewing bridge was also constructed to walk across and view from ‘above’. At 13:00 hours the fun begins. The Rules in order given are:
Watch over your belongings, watch out for pickpockets.
You will be given a bag to put your tulips in.
Do not bring your own bag. Not allowed.
You may take 20 tulips, bulb and all. [the dirty little secret is that these bulbs will not procreate they are a one-time bloom]
Enjoy yourself.
What was not on the rules list that the wait time is approximately an hour. Those selfies in and among the tulips, better here than in the fields.
interesting facts: 9 of 10 tulips are exported, Germany is the largest importer, buying 1000 million [een miljard] or in other words: 1 billion cut tulips per year. 2000 million or 2 billion are produced annually.