Bloemencorso Bollenstreek – A Bloomin’ Good Time in the Netherlands

If you love flowers (Hi! 🙋🏼‍♀️), fall might have you eyeing your resting flower beds, wondering how long it’ll be until you can dig your fingers back into the soil. Want something on the calendar to look forward to? Something that shouts from the rooftops, ‘growing season is back!’, and a celebration of spring to put all others to shame?

Then look no further than the Netherlands, where the Bloemencorso Bollenstreek has exactly what you’re looking for, in spades.

Sound like a tongue-twister?

Let us straighten it out for you.

The Bloemencorso Bollenstreek, which translates to the ‘Flower Parade of the Bulb Region’, is what happens when you give a flower parade a very generous dose of fertilizer and then plug it directly into the sun.

Is it colorful? Yes. Is it spectacular? Yes! Does it leave you with the feeling that spring is magnificent and life is worth saluting?

You tell us, once you’ve seen it!

What is the Bloemencorso Bollenstreek?

In short, the Bloemencorso is a parade full of flowers, and we’re talking literally. It’s not just giant floats in floral themes careening down the road, or lovely pink-and-purple floats making their way through the throngs.

In the Bloemencorso, the floats are Made. Of. Flowers.

Millions upon millions of blooms make up the most elaborate themed floats, so what looks like a roaring lion, a bright toucan, or a chugging train from far away turns out, up close, to be an impossible arrangement of spring’s finest blooms.

The parade has been around since 1947 and now draws crowds of more than a million visitors each year, and it still carries the celebratory air of its post-war beginnings.

The parade winds along a route which is about 26 miles (42 kilometers) long, from the beach town of Noordwijk through the heart of the bulb fields and all the way to Haarlem. And yes, it passes right by Keukenhof, so you can watch the floats roll by and then step straight into that fireworks show of a garden!

With more than 75 years of volunteers, local growers, and flower artists keeping it alive, it’s no wonder the parade is now officially recognized as part of Dutch cultural heritage, a tradition the whole country treasures.

Wait, it’s actually made of flowers?

Sure is!

This springtime extravaganza masquerading as a parade is just the crowning moment of days of festive flowering, with volunteers assembling floats whose designs have been in the works since fall. Once the parade rolls into Haarlem, the floats go on display for another chance to see them in full, down to the last crowning corolla.

Imagine yourself standing there along the parade route, drinking in the scent of millions of flowers shouting that spring is here, trying to suss out which blooms make up that blue-and-yellow schooner while a daffodil-laden bandstand rolls through to keep your energy up.

Now take that fantasy up a notch. A float approaches, a sparkling springtime dream you know very well, because you were one of the volunteers who tucked those scented hyacinths and sturdy gerberas into place.

It’s a little like the night before Christmas. You’ve spent days working alongside other volunteers to put together a sparkly unicorn of a float, and then an impatient night trying to sleep, eager to see everything go off without a hitch. Now, in the daylight hours, you watch a creation that you helped make introduce itself to the world and receive the adoring oohs and aahs of the crowds lining the street.

That’s the best way to experience the Bloemencorso.

Why is it so irresistible?

The Netherlands is known for its long history in botany, plant breeding, and flower auctions.

The Dutch love their gardening, and they’ve been bringing home and cultivating plants from all over the world since the country’s Golden Age. In fact, the Netherlands is Europe’s principal flower-trading hub, a vital marketplace where fresh-cut flowers are traded and sent to countries across Europe and beyond.

Which means any visit to the Netherlands in spring is going to sneak fragrant freesias and exquisite orchids into your senses. This little nation knows how to pack a punch (and a bulb).

The parade feels like one giant celebration of spring, of new life and possibility bursting into the sunshine (or crisp spring air, since it’s only April and, as the Dutch like to say, “April does what it wants”). Now that’s an inspiration worth bringing back to your flower beds at home!

Want to be one of the volunteers?

If you’re going to go all the way to the Netherlands, and you’re enough of a plant lover to time it to the Bloemencorso, is it safe to say that you’ll want to squeeze in some other floral adventures too? Then check out our Dutch Spring Bulbs trip.

You’ll work alongside the local flower artists before the Bloemencorso, tucking tulips and hyacinths into place. Then on parade day, we’ll make sure you have a great spot to watch the daffodil-covered trains and dragons roll by. Oh, and keep an eye out for that tulip unicorn you helped make!

But the parade is only the beginning. You’ll also visit nurseries in the heart of the Netherlands’ bulb region, stroll through Keukenhof and private gardens in full bloom, and explore the oldest botanical garden in the Netherlands. It’s a floral surge whose scents won’t leave your senses until long after the blooms give way to summer.

Check out the full itinerary and snap up your spot today. That tulip unicorn won’t build itself!