Tulip Season in Amsterdam: What I Expected and What I Found

At the end of April and the start of May, I thought the city centre would be buzzing with tulips. It wasn’t. Maybe I had missed the moment. Amsterdam was buzzing in orange, because of King’s Day, but not with tulips.

Do not get me wrong. There were pots of tulips here and there, clogs stuffed with tulips hanging outside shops, and flower stalls selling them by the bunch. But not the abundance I had pictured. To see tulips the way I had imagined them, we had to go out to Keukenhof, and there they were stunning.

Amsterdam Tulip Season at a Glance
🌷 City (Tulp Festival) · 1–30 April, freshest in the first three weeks — pots, flower beds and Vondelpark’s floating tulips.
🌁 The fields (Bollenstreek) · Peak around mid-April near Lisse; growers start “topping” (cutting the heads) from late April.
🏡 Keukenhof · The sure thing — around 7 million bulbs; 2027 season runs 18 March–9 May. Give it a full day.
🟠 Late April catch · The city turns orange for King’s Day (27 April), not tulips.
💡 Tip · Check the weekly bloom forecasts before you travel, and head to Vondelpark for the floating beds.

What the City Looked Like

On Leidseplein, the stone planters in front of the Stadsschouwburg were still full of pink double tulips on April 26. Up close, most of them were past their best, with petals opened wide and browning at the edges.

Tulips in clogs hang outside shops all over the centre. These ones are plastic, with the ridges moulded into every petal.

The flower stalls did sell real tulips, and cheaply. At this one, a bunch of ten was €4.50, next to buckets of ranunculus, anemones and gerberas.

The exception in the city was Vondelpark. On April 25, the floating tulips on the pond were still in full bloom, and on a sunny evening the lawns around them were full.

Museumplein: Expectation and Reality

This is how the pond on Museumplein can look in tulip season: tubs of red and white tulips set out on the water in front of the Rijksmuseum, their reflections doubling them.

And this is how it looked on April 27. There was construction work around the pond, near Moco Museum and the Van Gogh Museum, and the pond had been drained. No floating tulips at all. On King’s Day, people in orange sat on the edge of an empty basin, with only a few tubs of tulips along the sides.

Why I Missed the Moment

The timing explains most of it. The Tulp Festival, which puts tulips in planters and flower beds across the city, runs only from April 1^st to April 30^th. By the last week of the month, many of the displays are winding down.

In the fields, peak bloom usually falls around mid-April, though the exact timing changes with the weather every year. From late April, growers start topping: cutting the flower heads off so that the nutrients go back into the bulb. A field can be bright colour one week and green stems the next.

Where the Tulips Really Were: Keukenhof

I have written a full post about Keukenhof, so this is the short version: it went above and beyond my expectations.

I am Canadian, and I had been to our own tulip festival in Ottawa, which exists thanks to bulbs from the Netherlands. So I arrived sceptical. How many ways can anyone arrange a tulip? I was wrong. The garden is a tulip Disneyworld. The little ones were running off to explore, and the adults were simply in awe. My one regret is that I only gave it half a day, because a tour to Zaanse Schans took up the rest of it.

Every year, around seven million bulbs are planted there by hand, in layers, so that early and late varieties bloom one after another and the garden stays full for its whole season.

The designs change from one part of the garden to the next. In one section, a long river of purple and pink tulips runs between the trees.

Elsewhere, red and purple beds run right down to the water.

And in the open beds, the colours are mixed in long sweeps of red, yellow, orange and pink.

The Fields Around Lisse

The fields are the picture most people have of Dutch tulip season, and they surround Keukenhof, concentrated around Lisse, Hillegom, Noordwijkerhout and Sassenheim. They are where the stripes in the photo at the top of this post come from. On the bus to Keukenhof, we did see a few fields still in colour, but a lot of them had already been cut, which is topping in action. I also missed the boat trip through the fields entirely.

Bubbly Tips

• Come in early to mid April for the city. The Tulp Festival runs from April 1^st to the 30^th, and the displays are freshest before the final week.
• Come around mid-April for the fields. That is usually when the Bollenstreek peaks, and topping starts from late April.
• Check the bloom before you travel. Weekly flower forecasts and maps of fields in bloom are published during the season, and they save a wasted trip.
• Book Keukenhof well ahead. The 2027 season runs from 18 March to 9 May, and tickets carry a time slot.
• Give Keukenhof a full day. I gave it half a day because of a Zaanse Schans tour on the same day, and I regretted it.
• Head to Vondelpark for floating tulips. It was the one place in the city that still looked like tulip season when I visited in late April.
• Pick your own on National Tulip Day. In January, Museumplein hosts National Tulip Day, when visitors can pick free tulips.
• Catch the flower parade. The Bloemencorso runs in mid-April from Noordwijk to Haarlem, with floats covered in flowers.
• Stay out of the fields. They are working farmland, so photograph from the roadside or the path.
• If you arrive in late April, plan for orange. King’s Day on 27 April will be the main event in the city, not the tulips.

Final Thoughts

Tulip season in Amsterdam is real, but by late April most of it is happening outside the city. The centre had pots, plastic tulips in clogs and buckets of cut flowers, and one beautiful pond in Vondelpark. Lisse had the rest.

For tulips in the city, mid-April is the time to go. Come at the end of the month, as I did, and the tulips are a bus ride away, while Amsterdam itself turns orange.

I will be back for the city displays, for sure. A little earlier in April next time, and once the construction around the pond on Museumplein is finished, so I can see the floating tulips there for myself.

Until next time!

xoxo,
Bubbly 🎈