Tulip Time Festival 2017: A Little Touch of Dutch
About a month ago, our friend posted a link about Tulip Festival Around The World 2017 on her Facebook page which gave us the idea. Some people, including us, were not aware that such festivals existed. It excited us to know that we don't have to go to the Netherlands or Japan to see tulips, because we both enjoy flowers and though we tried planting tulips ourselves, we weren't so successful. We chose Holland, Michigan because it is closer to us. The Tulip Time Festival in Holland, Michigan was held on May 6th - May 14th, 2017. It has been held every year in mid-May since 1929 and is currently the largest tulip festival in the United States.
We started looking for information about the festival and found out that we could get the brochure for free by joining their official website mailing list. The brochure was really helpful because they gave information about parking spots, Tulip Lanes map, festival schedules, activities, and many more. We decided to go there in the second/last weekend due to the work schedule.
After waiting patiently for a month, we finally went to Holland, MI after work on Friday, May 12th. The distance from home to there is about 379 miles (5h 34m), so it was a test of endurance. We booked a hotel in Muskegon which is a 45 mins drive from Holland as that was the cheapest one we could find at that time. On Saturday morning, after deciding where we should park, we went to Holland at 09:00 AM. There's a Downtown Holland Park & Ride shuttle that you can use to bring you to the center of attraction for $1 one way. But we checked the map and we were planning to see the fireworks at Kollen Park, so we decided to park our car next to Holland Civic Theater instead of taking the shuttle.
Don't assume you could find free parking during the festival. We parked our car at the First United Methodist Church of Holland near Holland Civic Theater for $5. We got there early so we didn't see much of a crowd and most of the parking spots were still empty. The town is clean and beautiful and they have a lot of colorful tulip displays along the city streets. We were lucky to get there on the last weekend because all of the tulips were already blooming, though, a few of them had died but that didn't make them look less beautiful.
We didn't take the Trolley Tour to save money but if you're interested to go there next year, the fare is $20/adult, $8/child 12 and under. It is an hour tour through Tulip Lanes, Holland's Historic Districts, city parks and downtown. Our first destination was Centennial Park. Even though it doesn't look like Keukenkof Garden in Netherlands, we were still pretty excited seeing the tulips.
They planted different kinds of tulips on this park. This park is one of the locations in downtown Holland that has tulip beds. Other locations are at Kollen Park, Window on the Waterfront and Windmill Island.
We then went to Marktplaats at Evergreen Commons which is only 13 mins walking distance from the park to see Dutch Dance. At the Marktplaats, you could have a chance to enjoy the Dutch traditions from wooden shoe carving demonstration, Klompen Dancing, or if you're interested to buy some handmade items and souvenirs. They also offered a wide selection of traditional Dutch entrees, sandwiches, salads, soups and desserts.
They scheduled the Dutch dance few times at different locations on that day, outdoor and indoor. The Dutch dance at Marktplaats started at 10:45 AM. Before the dance, the Costume Designer explained about the 11 different costumes that were represented during the style show and dance. The first performance was presented by older dancers, took about half an hour. Then it was continued with the Kinder Dutch Dance where they danced and sang in Dutch.
The next destination was Windmill Island Gardens. We skipped the Parade and Drum Band because of the traffic and how tight the schedule was. We decided to drive to the Windmill Island Gardens because it is farther from the Marktplaats. Since it was almost time for the Parade, the traffic went crazy and road blocks were everywhere which made the drive longer than anticipated. We were relieved that we didn't have to pay to park at the Windmill Island area, until we saw the fee to enter the garden was $9. Considering the time we spent to drive to Holland, we decided to pay (oh well).
Inside the garden, you could see a larger size of tulip beds, although so many rude people stomped around the garden just to take pictures. Being there made you feel like you're in a small Dutch village.
The windmill inside the garden, called DeZwaan (The Swan) Windmill was brought to Holland, Michigan from the Netherlands in 1964. It opened to the public in 1965 and enjoys the unique status of being the United States’ only authentic, working, Dutch windmill, as well as the last windmill to leave the Netherlands. (source: http://www.michigan.org/).
They gave us free tour inside the windmill for 25-30 minutes with a guide to see the flour production.
There is also an original piece of the blade of the windmill. The blades served DeZwaan from the early 1900's through March of 2000. The windmill was used as a lookout in the Netherlands during World War II. If you look closely to the picture below, you will be able to find the bullet holes left in the blades from that time.
After staying for a while, we finally tried the authentic Dutch cuisine at Tante Nellie's Kitchen. Took Ayu a while until she agreed to try it. We chose Windmill Special menu for $9, which included Bowl of Soup (peas or vegetable), Roll with Dutch Cheese or Pig-in-the-blanket, Currant Bread or Cole Slaw, selection of desserts (we chose Oliebollen/Fatballs which is Dutch fritter served with powdered sugar) and drinks.
To celebrate the final weekend of Tulip Time 2017, there was a live musical performance at Kollen Park followed by a fireworks display over Lake Macatawa at 10 PM. We drove to Kollen Park after lunch and parked at Boatwerk Waterfront Restaurant. We're not sure what happened but we didn't know that we had to pay to park there and nobody was standing at the entrance to collect parking money. After we stayed there for a while, we found out that it cost $5 to park there. It was our lucky day that it was free for us 😂. We tried to stay for the fireworks but the wind was too strong and we didn't dress properly so we decided to skip it as well.
On our way to the hotel, we passed by Neli's Dutch Village, a theme park celebrating the Netherlands with a wooden shoe factory, cheese-making and a petting zoo. We skipped that too because we didn't wanna pay $12 for each lol 👀.
There's something about the city that gives off a magical feel to it, like you entered a storybook and you want to take your time to explore it as much as you can. The people there were friendly and cheerful and proved how charming Holland can be. We absolutely recommend visiting someday.
After waiting patiently for a month, we finally went to Holland, MI after work on Friday, May 12th. The distance from home to there is about 379 miles (5h 34m), so it was a test of endurance. We booked a hotel in Muskegon which is a 45 mins drive from Holland as that was the cheapest one we could find at that time. On Saturday morning, after deciding where we should park, we went to Holland at 09:00 AM. There's a Downtown Holland Park & Ride shuttle that you can use to bring you to the center of attraction for $1 one way. But we checked the map and we were planning to see the fireworks at Kollen Park, so we decided to park our car next to Holland Civic Theater instead of taking the shuttle.
Don't assume you could find free parking during the festival. We parked our car at the First United Methodist Church of Holland near Holland Civic Theater for $5. We got there early so we didn't see much of a crowd and most of the parking spots were still empty. The town is clean and beautiful and they have a lot of colorful tulip displays along the city streets. We were lucky to get there on the last weekend because all of the tulips were already blooming, though, a few of them had died but that didn't make them look less beautiful.
We didn't take the Trolley Tour to save money but if you're interested to go there next year, the fare is $20/adult, $8/child 12 and under. It is an hour tour through Tulip Lanes, Holland's Historic Districts, city parks and downtown. Our first destination was Centennial Park. Even though it doesn't look like Keukenkof Garden in Netherlands, we were still pretty excited seeing the tulips.
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| Welkom.. |
We then went to Marktplaats at Evergreen Commons which is only 13 mins walking distance from the park to see Dutch Dance. At the Marktplaats, you could have a chance to enjoy the Dutch traditions from wooden shoe carving demonstration, Klompen Dancing, or if you're interested to buy some handmade items and souvenirs. They also offered a wide selection of traditional Dutch entrees, sandwiches, salads, soups and desserts.
They scheduled the Dutch dance few times at different locations on that day, outdoor and indoor. The Dutch dance at Marktplaats started at 10:45 AM. Before the dance, the Costume Designer explained about the 11 different costumes that were represented during the style show and dance. The first performance was presented by older dancers, took about half an hour. Then it was continued with the Kinder Dutch Dance where they danced and sang in Dutch.
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The next destination was Windmill Island Gardens. We skipped the Parade and Drum Band because of the traffic and how tight the schedule was. We decided to drive to the Windmill Island Gardens because it is farther from the Marktplaats. Since it was almost time for the Parade, the traffic went crazy and road blocks were everywhere which made the drive longer than anticipated. We were relieved that we didn't have to pay to park at the Windmill Island area, until we saw the fee to enter the garden was $9. Considering the time we spent to drive to Holland, we decided to pay (oh well).
Inside the garden, you could see a larger size of tulip beds, although so many rude people stomped around the garden just to take pictures. Being there made you feel like you're in a small Dutch village.
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They gave us free tour inside the windmill for 25-30 minutes with a guide to see the flour production.
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There is also an original piece of the blade of the windmill. The blades served DeZwaan from the early 1900's through March of 2000. The windmill was used as a lookout in the Netherlands during World War II. If you look closely to the picture below, you will be able to find the bullet holes left in the blades from that time.
After staying for a while, we finally tried the authentic Dutch cuisine at Tante Nellie's Kitchen. Took Ayu a while until she agreed to try it. We chose Windmill Special menu for $9, which included Bowl of Soup (peas or vegetable), Roll with Dutch Cheese or Pig-in-the-blanket, Currant Bread or Cole Slaw, selection of desserts (we chose Oliebollen/Fatballs which is Dutch fritter served with powdered sugar) and drinks.
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| Vegetable soup, Currant Bread, Roll with Dutch Cheese, Fatballs and Hot Cocoa |
On our way to the hotel, we passed by Neli's Dutch Village, a theme park celebrating the Netherlands with a wooden shoe factory, cheese-making and a petting zoo. We skipped that too because we didn't wanna pay $12 for each lol 👀.
There's something about the city that gives off a magical feel to it, like you entered a storybook and you want to take your time to explore it as much as you can. The people there were friendly and cheerful and proved how charming Holland can be. We absolutely recommend visiting someday.
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| Vaarwel Holland! |
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