Voyages
Tag: Holland
Petit Palais
I went to see an exhibit at the very beautiful Petit Palais here in Paris, les Hollandais à Paris, about artists from the Netherlands who came to Paris through the years to paint and be part of the art going on there. Some I had heard of, Van Gogh of course, others were new to me. It was very enjoyable. No photos were allowed.
The poster for the exhibit. The painting it shows is by Van Gogh painted from his brother’s apartment in Paris in Montmartre. There was also a very interesting one of windmills at the top of a hill there and it showed just how rural it was at one time. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a painting by Van Gogh of Paris before.
The building is a work of art. This is one ceiling in a rotunda on the ceiling with all sorts of scenes from Paris painted on it.
A beautiful staircase there.
The symbol of Paris seen outside from the interior garden.
Windmills
While in Holland we went to a little village called Zaanse Schans known for its windmills which were moved from elsewhere to preserve them. It was delightful.
This little shop sold tourist wares. I’m not sure what it was before.
Love the shape of buildings in Holland.
A lot of the windmills were painted this nice green color.
Six in a row lining the water. Some of them worked but with electric engines, not wind.
This was in a window of a bed and breakfast there. Very elegant I thought.
Tulips
Maurice and I decided to do a quick trip recently. We were talking about various options when I mentioned I’d love to see the tulips in bloom in Holland and off we went. It turns out we were two to three weeks too early for the tulips but we still had a great time. Tulips originally came from the middle East and became crazy expensive in Holland and made many people a fortune. They were like gold. I heard that the ones we buy now for our homes as cut flowers come from green houses not fields. Holland is the center of the cut flowers world. Many are flown in from Holland all over the world. The florist at the George V Hotel in Paris goes there to pick out flowers in person. We found the Dutch to be a very welcoming people and everyone seemed to be fluent in English. When I listened to the radio I found the cadence very American like even though I didn’t understand one word and when they used an English word it was done in a perfect American accent unlike in France where an English word has that strong French accent. Just interesting to me.
We first went to the Keukenhof Gardens where there are over 7 million tulip bulbs planted. It is only open two months a year. Most of the tulips blooming on the grounds on the day we arrived were forced as they say but a few had started. Mostly there were daffodils and hyacinths.
Here are some tulips blooming with some purple hyacinths and there is a huge field of red tulips in the back ground.
The grounds were stunning. Here is the flowering branch of a tree hanging over some water. We were there on a Saturday and by the afternoon it was packed with people. The grounds are perfect, rather like Disneyland, and the crowds were Disneyland-like too.
Unusual, and beautiful, tulips.
They had little gardens around and this one had pots made of the famous Delft pottery topped with these two cuties.
Some of the people selling food there wore Dutch costumes.
A look at the perfect grounds with hyacinths with tulips to come.