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Probably one of the most famous gardens in the world,the Keukenhof is now in full bloom.I always regret that we didn’t get there when we visited a good friend near The Hague during the years we lived in Zurich, but I have thought about it every April since! Here is some history:

The land in the 15th century was originally hunting grounds.It was then owned by several families, one of them was Jacoba van Beiren Keukenhof.
After Keukenhof died, the land became the property of Baron and Baroness Van Pallandt who invited landscape architects J.D. and L.P. Zocher, designers of the Amsterdam Vondelpark, to make a design for the garden around the castle. This design, in the English landscape style, has always been the basis of Keukenhof.
At the moment, the estate belongs to a Foundation. On the initiative of the Lisse Mayor of that time and a number of leading flower bulb growers and exporters, an open air flower exhibition was organised here for the first time in 1949. This expanded to an annually recurring event that has always drawn great numbers of visitors from all over the world. This is how Keukenhof became the park that we now know. The park is filled with blooming tulips, hyacinths, daffodils and other spring bulbs.