500.000 tulips in bloom during the 2nd edition of Tulp Festival in Amsterdam

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500.000 tulips in bloom during the 2nd edition of Tulp Festival in Amsterdam 60 locations , 400 varieties, walking and bike routes.
For the second year in succession, Amsterdam will be decked in the most glorious colours, throughout April and May. During the Tulp Festival 2016 visitors can marvel at more than 500,000 brightly coloured tulips, of more than 400 different varieties, at 60 locations throughout the capital.

There are routes for walking or cycling; and our beautiful guidebook, complete with maps, gives visitors all the details they could want about locations, varieties and names. The guidebook is available from participating organisations. Follow the latest news and information
about flowering times during the festival, via the website www.tulpfestival.com and let yourself be tempted by a tulip walking or cycling tour. Or contribute to the comprehensive photo gallery via Instagram and Facebook.

Tulips on the squares and roadsides
Uplifting displays of potted tulips line the streets and squares in the centre of Amsterdam, Amsterdam North, South and East. The Amsterdam Tulip Museum has made for an explosion of tulips with its display of all white varieties on the Westermarkt, around the ‘Anne Frank’ tulip. The fountain on the Museumplein will be arrayed with tulips, potted displays of tulips line the quay by NEMO and along the IJ by the EYE Film Institute. In one of the new locations, Het Marineterrein (by the Maritime  Museum), a mix of ‘Europe’ tulips have been planted in the ground, that will produce a real explosion of colour. That goes for numerous other locations in public parks, from Vondelpark to Oosterpark and Frankendael, as well as in the gardens of  hotels and museums.

Tulips in the gardens of museums and hotels
The best known tulip garden – which is incidentally, free to enjoy – is that of the Rijksmuseum, but many other museums will be welcoming visitors during April with magnificent displays of tulips in their gardens or by the entrance. So, you’ll find regal tulips at the Museum Van Loon, ‘ladies tulips’ at the Museum of Bags and Purses; a tulip exhibition in the garden of the 18th century canal house that is the Museum Willet-Holthuysen; white tulips by the Cromhouthuis; Russian tulips at the Hermitage and the Van Gogh tulip next to the museum of the same name. Wonder at the tulips in the Hoftuin, of the Hortus Botanicus and at the ‘parakeet’ tulips at the RAI.

Hotels and Tulip in Amsterdam
There are also many hotels that are opening their gardens to the public and showing impressive tulip creations. Such as 80 organic tulip varietie  at the Conservatorium Hotel; 6000 American tulips in the biggest indoor garden of the canal area, at the Waldorf Astoria; a new – still to be revealed – tulip at The Grand; ‘dream tulips’ at the Andaz; Royal tulips at the De L’Europe; Italian tulips in the garden of the Hilton on the Apollolaan and on the roof of the Double Tree by Hilton.

Tulips in all shapes and sizes
In total, there were more than 430.000 tulip bulbs planted in the ground at different locations last October and November. For other places potted tulip compositions were specifically designed. Thus, 70.000 more tulips have been deployed. The potted tulips will be in bloom around April 1st, as the gardener can influence the growing process. For the flowering period of the tulips planted directly in the soil it’s more of a waiting game to see what blooms, when and where. Only the weather gods can influence that. The website www.tulpfestival.com will keep you up to date.

The more than 400 tulip varieties vary from well-known types such as the ‘Princess Irene’, ‘Estella Rijnveld’, ‘Ice Cream’, ‘Hemisphere’, ‘Persian Pearl’, ‘Van Gogh’ and ‘Jazz’ to exotic sorts like ‘Virichic’ and ‘Abu Hassan’. The number of colours is innumerable, the shades  iffer from blackish-purple to white, multiple shades of red, pink, orange, apricot, bronze, yellow (with green inside), striped, flaming, frilly, ‘parakeet’ tulips, lily shaped, double…too many to name, but all of them well worth a look. Tulp Festival Amsterdam, from April 1st, for as long as the tulips are in bloom.

About the Tulp Festival Amsterdam
Saskia Albrecht is the founder of the Tulp Festival; garden designer and for more than ten years, together with the Museum Van Loon, organiser of the Open Garden Days in Amsterdam. A few years ago she had the idea of organising a tulip weekend: Amsterdam has the reputation of being the tulip city, but that is not really reflected in public spaces. Two years ago, on the return journey from the famous tulip festival in Istanbul – 14 million tulips are planted there annually by the council – Saskia Albrecht dreamt up the idea of starting a similarly huge festival across the whole month of April in Amsterdam, with a tulip for every Amsterdammer. That would mean more than 830.000 tulips, a dream that must one day become a reality. With the second edition of the Tulp Festival we’re well on our way!

Amsterdam and the tulip
Amsterdam and tulips are often spoken of with the same breath. Once, at the start of the 17th century, Dutch envoys brought back tulip bulbs from the palace gardens of Constantinople. In no time at all tulips were all the rage in Amsterdam: bulbs were sold before they could be harvested from the ground, so the new owner could only guess at what they’d bought. For a time the salesmen made a fortune, until eventually it got completely out of hand: in 1637 three bulbs were sold for the same price as an Amsterdam canal house. The government brought in pricing restrictions and the market collapsed. Many went bankrupt, cartoons lampooned the tulip mania, but the tulip survived and became forever associated with Amsterdam.

Still, in more recent years the tulip has increasingly disappeared from the streets; a fact that became apparent and led to a new initiative:  Tulp Festival was born. Tulp Festival is a charitable organisation with the goal of making the tulip visible in the capital once more, and eventually planting a tulip for every individual Amsterdammer.

www.tulpfestival.com