Our first time at the Bloemencorso (Flower Parade)

The Dutch take tulip season seriously and it is celebrated every year with the Flower Parade. The Bloemencorso snakes from Noordwijk to Haarlem from 9am to 9pm during the blooming season. We have missed every other parade due to Spring Break, but were able to go this year! Being newbies, we didn't really know the best place to watch or how to avoid what I imagined would be insane traffic jams. So we headed early to the town of Sassenheim, which had a park and an Albert Heijn so we could have a picnic lunch while we waited for the parade to arrive. While we were shopping, we saw the early town parade, which consisted of a marching band and hundreds of toddlers and children on their bikes and scooters decked out with flowers! So cute.

Turns out that Sassenheim is where the parade stops for their lunch break, too, so while we didn't get to see the parade driving by, we got to see all of the parked floats up close and personal. Occasionally a marching band would go by so there was still a parade atmosphere.

The floats were made of every flower imaginable. Just wow! Hyacinths were the predominant flower on many and I wish my blog post could capture that smell! So glad we were finally able to see this celebration of Spring in Holland!

 

Ancient Chinese horse drawn carriage with a modern bullet train behind it. The horses were made completely of flower bulbs! 

Maeve loved the one with the TV screen on it :)

This one had a moving head. 

Selfies in front of the Dutch Flag

The evolution one was my favorite. Five displays with the evolution of man (in Delft tile imitation) on either side and the evolution of a tulip growing in 3D on the sides. 

The tulips made of pink hyacinths were really stunning.

The kids liked the dinosaurs, of course. The cobra with the turtles crawling on it was really well done, too. 

The decorations on the cars were equally stunning.