Dream Road Trip..

When it comes to road trips, there’s no one  crazier than me. I’m one the the craziest lover of road trips.
Nothing gives me more joy than road trips. My ideal and much awaited road trip is drive on my lovely BMW 6-Series 650i Convertible on the Flower Route in the Netherlands with my all time favorite actor Amitabh Bachchan.

 From the moment the first tulip was planted in Dutch soil, in 1593, the Netherlands has been in extravagant bloom and the Dutch have been in thrall to flowers, inventing a whole horticultural industry and turning their lowland fields into a blanket of blooms. The flowers reach their climax, of course, in April and May, when Holland offers Europe's quintessential spring drive. For anyone who wants to see nature in all its glory and smell the roses—or in this case the tulips, hyacinths, narcissi, and daffodils—western Holland is the prime place to be. And the Dutch, as practical as they are aesthetic, have made certain that visitors won't miss a single bloom.

Starting in Haarlem, the northernmost point of the Bollenstreek Route—also known as the Bloemen Route (Flower Route) on BMW was just feeling of supremacy with Bachchan ji. Haarlem's historic center is seamed with canals and punctuated by the landmarks that hometown artists painted. Starting in Haarlem, stopping once at The Frans Hals Museum; one of Holland's top small galleries. The best way to get in the modd for the blooming drive was this place. 

From Haarlem, heading towards south on highway N208 to Lisse. This town makes a quaint pit stop in its own right, but its real claim to fame is the Bloemen Route's showstopper: The Keukenhof Garden (Stationsweg 166a, Lisse), which started as the small kitchen garden of a 15th-century countess and now bills itself as nothing less than the most beautiful spring garden in the world, designed to showcase the art of Dutch bulb growers. Spilling across 70 acres (28 hectares) of wooded parkland and attracting more than 700,000 visitors annually, the garden has nine miles (14 kilometers) of walking paths that wind around ponds, a windmill, greenhouse pavilions holding indoor displays, and more than seven million bulbs planted three layers deep to ensure a blaze of color. For a taste of Golden Age Dutch grandeur, we stopped by the tower-ringed Castle Keukenhof, which sits directly across from the entrance to the garden. Built by a former commander of the Dutch East India Company, which helped make 17th-century Holland very rich, the castle features the kitchen where aristocratic feasts of yore were prepared. The smile of Bachchan ji's face while driving, along with his life stories shared by him just kept making this trip memorable one.

Continuing south, taking N208 to the larger highway A44, and we came to the town of Leiden, a calmer, crucial Bloemen landmark. The small, historic town is home to Holland's oldest university as well as the Botanical Garden, which looks miniature after Keukenhof but may seem more beautiful in its understatement, and which claims more of a historical pedigree. "The Botanical Garden was planted in 1594," says curator Carla Teune, and the first director of the garden was Carolus Clusius, one of the greatest botanists of his time. We took a break at one of the restaurants, this place was just amazing. Never experienced such a ambience, all around flowers. 

Now it's time to dive back into the fields. Being on one of the smoothest and loveable drive on my lovely BMW was just amazing. The nice thing about the Bloemen Route is that it allows for a variety of highlights, and one of the best lies about 30 minutes south of Leiden (take A4 south and then turn west on N222) at Naaldwijk, where you can see what a muscular commercial force all those flowers have become, and how important they are to the Dutch economy.

This drive takes in the densest concentration of flower fields, with alternating strips of flowers shooting in thick ribbons of primary colors to the flat Dutch horizon. These are followed by daffodils, narcissi, and hyacinths. Irises and tulips emerge , followed by gladioli, dahlias, and fragrant lilies. The queen of this nonstop flower extravaganza is the tulip, bursting out in every candy color. Flower sellers set up stalls along the road and sell garlands to adorn your car. But it isn't just the beds of blooms that make this drive eye-popping. What you'll also pass along the route is the sturdy billion-dollar industry that those seemingly wispy flowers support: the auction houses that sell the flowers; the public gardens that showcase the flowers; the museums and private gardens that celebrate the horticultural tradition; a series of gabled, Vermeer-worthy villages that grew rich on the flower industry; and two elegant cities, Haarlem and Leiden, that offer as much history and canal-side beauty per square block as Amsterdam itself.





All this makes a short drive worth experiencing. Heavenly feeling of a road drive with my favorite Amitabh Bachchan.
Ambi Pur