Miscellayneous

All of the photos you're seeing here are from the same beautiful display of tulips as soon as we arrived at the festival, and they were my highlight of the day. There are thousands of buds planted each year and they're extraordinary to see together (especially after spending the year indoors.)

There are small picks with the names of the tulips and a stand where you can purchase some if you'd like to. Behind this area, there is a path we walked on for about half a mile while heading to the most advertised attraction, the Windmill.

 

This is where you'll notice there are no photos of the windmill because the wait was going to be an hour and a half and we may not have been granted entry after that wait. They were allowing 1,000 people in the gardens at a time, which was causing extended wait times. Unfortunately, it was a group decision to skip Windmill Gardens, which I absolutely would not have done under different circumstances, but we thought it was for the best.

We walked into the downtown area which is a long strip of small shops, restaurants, and pubs. For my Illinois-ans, it's reminiscent of Galena. Like, if Galena was a college town. The shops were very crowded, but I did weasel my way into Fris Supply Shop where I purchased some postcards for scrapbooking and some old maps to hang up in my room, as well as to use for scrapbook paper.

This was also the point where we started to look for a place to eat and the restaurants couldn't sit people until 9pm. The opening weekend/college welcome weekend crowds were thriving in this moment. I'm not sure if there was an option to make reservations at any of the restaurants ahead of time, but we decided to hang on until we were heading out of town and we'd stop somewhere.

(Note: we stopped at Coppercraft Distillery not too far out of town, and there was one man working who didn't greet us while we stood in the doorway for about ten minutes, so we didn't eat until we were back home.)

Their downtown area is gorgeous, though. They have a lot of wonderful shops and the atmosphere is very much an upbeat small-town. I could see myself spending much more time here than I was able to and making a day trip out of shopping and dining on Main Street when there aren't five billion people around.

We headed out of the heart of the festival and decided to head over to Dutch Village, which was another bust for us as a party of four adults. It's really tailored to kids and we decided to save our admission money. Also, their computers went down at the ticket booth. We walked the perimeter and saw some shops before deciding to head back home for the day. 

An overall impression of Holland, Michigan is that I wouldn't have gone had Tulip Fest not have been going on, but there were too many people at the fest with CoVid restrictions to thoroughly enjoy it. I completely understand the restrictions, but I think with the inclusion of Hope's welcome weekend inviting more people to the town, things should have been handled a bit differently. 

I think the town itself would make a nice day trip if you're looking for something different. All of the small shops sell unique things that make for a good break from the big name stores we visit regularly. It's a great strip if you're looking to score a unique gifts or a statement piece for your home.

Holland has a handful of breweries, which would have been cool and my hindsight is 20/20 on booking reservations next time so I can embrace new restaurants and keep the trip organized.

It also helps to know what is up there and where things are at. My mom printed out maps for all of us of all of the tulip attractions, which made planning our next event easier because we could visit things based on their distance. If you're not going for Tulip Fest, it'll still be helpful to have some kind of handy guide for where the windmill is from the downtown area and Dutch village, etc..

This was a one-and-done kind of trip for me (especially since Fris has an online shop :-)). It's officially been marked off in the book and we're onward to planning the next day trip!

Thanks for reading and giving me the opportunity to share my adventures with you all. See you next week. <3