The Flower Festival in Holland

I am a child of spring, and so April and May seem to me the most beautiful months of the year, when the earth awakens and blooms. If we're talking about blooming, where else is the flower so celebrated and honoured as in Holland. The enthusiastic accounts of the vast blooming tulip fields truly prove justified when you see the photographs sent over. The chance to admire this beauty from afar was arranged by Silvija - a travel consultant with the Latvian Tourism Guides Association, a lovely, responsive, energetic, and cheerful woman whom I met during the trip to Paris.

Photographs from the famous flower parade, which is organised every year in mid-April (this year it took place on 24 April). The flower procession begins in the city of Noordwijk and runs 40 km all the way to the city of Haarlem. These parades feature enormous flower-covered floats and various luxury cars decorated with hundreds and thousands of different flowers, as well as music and dance groups. It turns out that Latvian couples in traditional costumes also danced in this parade. Here too are the blooming tulip fields, the green squares, parks, picturesque lanes, and the city's candlelit canals in the evenings.

A little history, to understand why Holland can be called a tulip paradise. It turns out that tulips only arrived in Holland in 1569. They were imported from Turkey as edible bulbs. As you might gather, the Dutch were not impressed by their taste, and the bulbs were thrown onto the compost heap. In spring the bulbs bloomed, and with the splendour of their flowers won the undivided affection of the Dutch.

The 17th century in Holland was the golden age of tulip cultivation and veneration. Tulip bulbs commanded large sums of money, which provided the foundation for extensive trade and also for speculation. It was only in 1638 that a law was passed in Amsterdam setting fixed prices for tulip bulbs. Yet the adoration of these flowers in Holland has continued to this day, and they have now become one of the country's indispensable symbols.

Tulips are also a significant source of income. The Dutch supply around 93% of all flower bulbs traded worldwide, and 60% of the flowers found in markets across the world come directly from Holland. The world's largest flower auction has been operating in Aalsmeer since 1912, where the quantity of cut flowers sold is counted not in thousands but in millions.

Enjoy Silvija's photographs too. And perhaps next year the inspiration will arise to go to Holland in person and delight your eyes with the rainbow of multicoloured tulip fields, or to follow the flower parade, which it seems has already been scheduled for 16 April.