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Biking on the day of the Flower Parade

Posted by on

Hello all! I had a question about the Flower Parade & biking around that day. Since we will be in the Netherlands during the parade we figured it would be a fun thing to do. In a previous post I mentioned out intentions to do the 35km Flower Route bike ride because we only did a small portion last year. My thoughts were to do this near the end of our trip (maybe April 18) but also to head to Holland for the Flower Parade on April 12. I was thinking we take the shuttle to Keukenhof early and have our bike rental booked for 9am (not going into Keukenhof that day, just using the transportation-only shuttle option). The biking route goes through Noordwijkerhout and Lisse, where I thought we could bike to and get breakfast, then find a spot along the road outside of town to watch the parade. My questions are:

  1. Will the roads be closed and we will be unable to bike the parade sections of the route that day? I'm from the US, where post-parade traffic can be insane. Not sure how it is in a country like the Netherlands.
  2. Will the towns be packed with people, making it really difficult to get into a restaurant for breakfast or lunch?
  3. If it's going to be crazy away from Keukenhof as well, would it be better for us to take a later shuttle out and just bike a short distance away to find a spot to watch the parade, and use our later visit to explore the towns in the area?

Thanks!

Posted by
1619 posts

If your goal is to see the vast tulip fields, I would always bike the flower route towards the end of your trip, not on April 12. The peak blooming of the tulips is in the 2nd half of April. Unless we have an early spring there won’t be much tulip fields in bloom on April 12, whereas on April 18 they should be many more fields in bloom.
The flower parade is usually always held at the 3 weekend of April to coincide with the blooming of the tulips. That means that in 2025 it should have been held on April 19, but because we have such a late Easter they moved it one weekend forward. That doesn’t mean that Mother Nature will move forward one week too!

Posted by
81 posts

One million people will be visiting the parade with, in a good Dutch tradition, people showing up early to get the best spots. The main villages and towns will be packed so finding a spot to have breakfast may be tricky unless you aiming for a spot that will be passed later (post-lunch time) during the day.

Cycling the parade route on the day may be challenging as the roads will be cordoned off.

Just a suggestion: Visit the floats in Haarlem on April 13 and do the cycle route leasurely later in April. As Dutch_traveler mentioned, tulips may be more at their peak.

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