Great Springtime Vacation Spots in Europe

If it's springtime you want in all its colorful glory, one of the best spots in Europe to see it happen before your eyes is at the Keukenhof Gardens, just a 20-minute bus trip from Amsterdam, The Nethelands. We were told about it at our near Amsterdam's Van Gogh museum while on a roaming trip through Northern Europe a couple of years ago. So we rode along the colorful Dutch countryside, hopped off the bus, paid our 11 Euros and entered the gates of the Gardens.

The date was May 1, so what could be more appropriate than seeing newly-blooming flowers as springtime arrived? Not just flowers, but Holland's national symbol, the tulip, in all its glory. Every fall and early spring for the past 60 years, more than seven million bulbs are meticulously planted by hand and nurtured at the Gardens.

We arrived at the Gardens on exactly the right day, maybe even the right hour, to see the blossoms at the peak of their beauty. We were told that because of weather differences, sometimes the full blooming happens as early as late March, or as late as early June. Walking through the fantastically brilliant blues, reds, oranges, purples and yellows along the 70 acres was like a stroll in heaven itself.

There were some other flower sections that featured different spring beauties: daffodils, hyacinths, narcissi and a few others. They add their colors, sights and aromas to the overall experience of Keukenhof wonders.

Of course, we visited all the other wonderful sights of the Netherlands, including all Amsterdam has to offer: museums, canals, windmills, cafes and marketplaces. But the one image we took away with us as representative of glorious springtime in that beautiful country was of the endless fields of tulips in bloom.