From mid-March the bulb fields southwest of the city turn into stripes of red, pink and yellow, and spring keeps going from there: Easter egg hunts, then King's Day on April 27, when kids sell old toys and lemonade on blankets all over town and everyone wears orange. Here's what we checked, from Keukenhof's tulip gardens to the windmills that open their doors on National Mill Day.
Keukenhof is a huge spring flower park in the bulb country between Amsterdam and Leiden, planted with about 7 million bulbs in hundreds of varieties. Kids follow paths past beds of tulips, daffodils and hyacinths, walk out to the windmill, where an electric boat cruises the bulb fields, and duck into pavilions full of flower displays. Best for kids happy to wander and look.
On King's Day, Vondelpark fills with blankets laid out by kids selling the toys they've outgrown and clothes that no longer fit. Children set their own prices and do the haggling. The bolder ones perform for passing crowds instead.
It suits kids old enough to count change, and younger ones happy to browse with a little pocket money. Expect crowds, orange everything and a lot of bargaining.
Bloemencorso Bollenstreek is a parade of giant floats covered in hyacinths, tulips and other spring flowers, rolling 42 km from Noordwijk to Haarlem through the bulb-growing villages. Kids see animals, buildings and characters built entirely from blooms, with music between them.
Find a spot along the road and you smell the hyacinths as each float passes. It suits families happy to wait at the roadside in a big crowd.
Every spring, Tulp Festival fills Amsterdam's public spaces with hundreds of thousands of tulips: planters on bridges and squares, beds in parks, displays in museum and hotel gardens. Its motto is "a tulip for every Amsterdammer", and the spots change each year.
Kids can hunt for the displays by bike or on foot. It suits families already in town; for flower fields, head to the bulb region.
Kids search for hidden Easter eggs in the formal garden behind Huis Willet-Holthuysen, a 17th-century canal house on the Herengracht. It is one of the few formal gardens left in central Amsterdam, with clipped hedges and spring bulbs that start flowering in late March.
Indoors, kids make an Easter craft or color pages with staff helping, while parents can look around the house's lavish period rooms.
A Liberation Day festival for families, held at the open-air theater in the middle of Vondelpark. Kids watch theater on the main stage, join a dance party, and drop into theater and craft workshops around the grounds.
The day also has a quieter side: in the park's bandstand, older Amsterdammers tell what they lived through as children in the Second World War, and kids can ask them questions.
Once a year, windmills and watermills across the Netherlands open to the public at the same time, and the millers who run them show visitors around. Kids can climb up inside, watch the sails turn and the gears move, and learn how mills once ground grain and pumped water out of the low land. It suits curious kids who like machines and big moving parts.
Zaanse Schans is a heritage village of green wooden houses and working windmills along the river Zaan. Kids can climb into an open mill to watch it saw timber or grind paint pigments, see clogs being made at the clog workshop, and taste cheese at the Catharina Hoeve farm. A windmill boat cruise and marked walking routes along the water round out the day.
A botanical garden founded in 1638 as a medicinal herb garden, now growing more than 4,000 plant species.
Kids head first for the Butterfly House, where tropical butterflies fly free and new ones hatch in a chrysalis cabinet. The Palm House holds ancient cycads, the Climate House runs from jungle to desert, and the carnivorous plant bed puts Venus flytraps and sundews at kid eye level.
From mid-March the bulb fields southwest of the city turn into stripes of red, pink and yellow, and spring keeps going from there: Easter egg hunts, then King's Day on April 27, when kids sell old toys and lemonade on blankets all over town and everyone wears orange. Here's what we checked, from Keukenhof's tulip gardens to the windmills that open their doors on National Mill Day.
Keukenhof is a huge spring flower park in the bulb country between Amsterdam and Leiden, planted with about 7 million bulbs in hundreds of varieties. Kids follow paths past beds of tulips, daffodils and hyacinths, walk out to the windmill, where an electric boat cruises the bulb fields, and duck into pavilions full of flower displays. Best for kids happy to wander and look.
On King's Day, Vondelpark fills with blankets laid out by kids selling the toys they've outgrown and clothes that no longer fit. Children set their own prices and do the haggling. The bolder ones perform for passing crowds instead.
It suits kids old enough to count change, and younger ones happy to browse with a little pocket money. Expect crowds, orange everything and a lot of bargaining.
Bloemencorso Bollenstreek is a parade of giant floats covered in hyacinths, tulips and other spring flowers, rolling 42 km from Noordwijk to Haarlem through the bulb-growing villages. Kids see animals, buildings and characters built entirely from blooms, with music between them.
Find a spot along the road and you smell the hyacinths as each float passes. It suits families happy to wait at the roadside in a big crowd.
Every spring, Tulp Festival fills Amsterdam's public spaces with hundreds of thousands of tulips: planters on bridges and squares, beds in parks, displays in museum and hotel gardens. Its motto is "a tulip for every Amsterdammer", and the spots change each year.
Kids can hunt for the displays by bike or on foot. It suits families already in town; for flower fields, head to the bulb region.
Kids search for hidden Easter eggs in the formal garden behind Huis Willet-Holthuysen, a 17th-century canal house on the Herengracht. It is one of the few formal gardens left in central Amsterdam, with clipped hedges and spring bulbs that start flowering in late March.
Indoors, kids make an Easter craft or color pages with staff helping, while parents can look around the house's lavish period rooms.
A Liberation Day festival for families, held at the open-air theater in the middle of Vondelpark. Kids watch theater on the main stage, join a dance party, and drop into theater and craft workshops around the grounds.
The day also has a quieter side: in the park's bandstand, older Amsterdammers tell what they lived through as children in the Second World War, and kids can ask them questions.
Once a year, windmills and watermills across the Netherlands open to the public at the same time, and the millers who run them show visitors around. Kids can climb up inside, watch the sails turn and the gears move, and learn how mills once ground grain and pumped water out of the low land. It suits curious kids who like machines and big moving parts.
Zaanse Schans is a heritage village of green wooden houses and working windmills along the river Zaan. Kids can climb into an open mill to watch it saw timber or grind paint pigments, see clogs being made at the clog workshop, and taste cheese at the Catharina Hoeve farm. A windmill boat cruise and marked walking routes along the water round out the day.
A botanical garden founded in 1638 as a medicinal herb garden, now growing more than 4,000 plant species.
Kids head first for the Butterfly House, where tropical butterflies fly free and new ones hatch in a chrysalis cabinet. The Palm House holds ancient cycads, the Climate House runs from jungle to desert, and the carnivorous plant bed puts Venus flytraps and sundews at kid eye level.
