Visiting Keukenhof Gardens on a Viking River Cruise

I’d been thinking about visiting Holland’s Keukenhof Gardens for quite some time and had the opportunity to visit on my recent “Tulips and Windmills” Viking River Cruise. Yes, springtime in the Netherlands is about as dreamy as you could ever imagine. We visited at the end of March, so many of the bulbs in the gardens weren’t yet in bloom but it was stunning nonetheless.

We visited Keukenhof on Good Friday and on our 40 minute drive from Amsterdam to the gardens, our Viking guide warned us that it was going to be very crowded considering it was a holiday. There were really long lines which we were able to skip because Viking had already gotten us our tickets. Hooray! Surprisingly though, once we got inside it was quiet, calm, and just so lovely.

The gardens sit between tulip fields and are much different than I had imagined. If you’ve ever walked around Central Park, the gardens reminded me of that. So grand and park-like. (Keukenhof is the world’s largest floral park!) Because most of the bulbs weren’t yet in bloom, I could only imagine what it would look like in all its blooming glory. Still, I was completely enamored.

After walking around the gardens, we paid a visit to the many buildings around Keukenhof to see more stunning blooms.

And of course, we made time for some Dutch treats too.

Notes:

• Our cruise was sponsored by Viking. All opinions expressed are entirely my own and everything I’ve written was done so by me with no input from Viking whatsoever.
• Today is the fourth post on our Tulips and Windmills Viking River Cruiseon my blog. You can find the other posts on my blog here ,  here, and here.
• I’ve also written extensively about the Viking River Cruise ships and cruises after my first river cruisewhich was on the Danube River. You can find the posts here.