Floating Flower Market

After reading recommendations in tourist brochures and guidebooks, the Floating Flower Market in Amsterdam can be a bit of a disappointment. To begin with, the market is only 300 metres long and you can’t tell from the street that it is floating because the barges are moored so closely together that they look like shops in an ordinary canal-side street. The market is always crowded and you are much more likely to meet other tourists than locals and while it is called Flower Market half the stalls sell clogs, wooden tulips, fridge magnets, garden gnomes and Delftware.

                  Bulbs galore

Buy Flowers

The Floating Flower Market is brimming with gorgeous tulips and daffodils and rows of potted plants. Bunches of flowers change hands as fast as they are wrapped. Silent garden gnomes give approving looks to flower-loving tourists. The locals on the other hand tend not to buy here because the prices are steep by Amsterdam standards.

During your visit to Amsterdam, check out the wonderful blossoms at the flower market stalls. Dig through the rows of flower bulbs, buy that funky gnome or stock up on pre-packed bulbs with instructions how to plant then in six languages. Or simply buy a bunch of golden daffodils to cheer up your hotel room.

Floating on Barges

Although the Floating Flower Market has become a tourist attraction, it used to play a very important role in the flower industry. From mid 19th century, bulb and flower growers sailed up the Amstel River, moored at Singel Canal and sold their cut flowers and plants from their boats. Today, the stalls are still floating on barges but they are permanently moored and much of the wholesale industry has moved to the Aalsmeer flower auction.

                  Flower Market – floating on barges

Dutch Flower Industry

The Dutch flower industry remains a thriving business. Holland is the largest exporter of cut flowers in the world. The Aalsmeer Flower Auction handles 19 million flowers and 2 million potted plants a day. Flowers and plants are swiftly transported to nearby Schiphol Airport and flown all over the world. If you have bought tulips, daffodils or lilies from your local florist, they probably came from Holland.

While exporting is a major industry, lots of flowers stay in Holland. You could almost say the Dutch speak ‘flower’. If the Dutch want to say thank you or patch up a quarrel, they give flowers. When you are invited to dinner at a Dutch home, you say ‘thank you’ by bringing flowers for your hostess. Where others would send a greeting card, the Dutch say it with flowers.

Tulips Galore

If you can’t get enough of tulips which have become synonymous with Holland, visit the Tulip Museum in Amsterdam (Prinsengracht 116) . Still hungry for more? Tour the Keukenhof Flower Gardens. Great drifts of dazzlingly coloured tulips bloom from mid-April to mid-May. Each spring Keukenhof Flower Garden explodes into a kaleidoscope of colours when 80,000 tulips grab the limelight.

Address

Floating Flower Market

Singel

Amsterdam

Opening Hours: Monday – Saturday 09.00 – 17.30, Sunday – 11.00 – 17.30

photo credit Marianne Crone