Ah, Keukenhof! Or, as I like to call it, Mother Nature's most flamboyant fashion show. Picture this: it's the 15th century, and Countess Jacoba van Beieren is pottering about her 'Keukenduyn' or 'kitchen dunes', gathering bits and bobs for the castle kitchen. Little did she know her humble herb garden and hunting grounds would one day become a world-famous floral extravaganza!

Fast forward to 1641, a fancy manor house called Keukenhof Castle pops up. Then, in 1857, the dynamic father-son duo of landscape architects, Jan David Zocher and Louis Paul Zocher (yes, the same chaps who designed Amsterdam's Vondelpark), gave the castle gardens a makeover in the dashing English landscape style. This layout, believe it or not, still forms the bones of the Keukenhof we see today.

But the real floral fireworks began in 1949. A clever group of 20 flower bulb growers and exporters had a lightbulb moment (pun absolutely intended!): "Let's use this estate to show off our stunning spring-flowering bulbs!" And so, in 1950, Keukenhof as a spring park burst onto the scene, and boy, was it an instant hit. We're talking 236,000 visitors in its first year alone!

Today, Keukenhof is fondly known as the 'Garden of Europe'. For about eight weeks each spring, from mid-March to mid-May, it transforms into a living, breathing catalogue of what the Dutch floricultural sector can do. Think a jaw-dropping 7 million spring-flowering bulbs, meticulously planted by hand each year, featuring around 800 varieties of tulips alone. But it's not just tulips; you'll find a dazzling array of hyacinths, daffodils, lilies, roses, carnations, and irises, all vying for your attention across its 32 hectares (that's 79 acres of floral fabulousness!).