A spring forward for Dutch tulips
This article is an adaptation of our weekly Travel newsletter that was originally sent out on May 14, 2021. Want this in your inbox? Sign up here.
By George Stone, TRAVEL Executive Editor
A year ago, pandemic border closures and lockdowns meant the Netherlands’ floral market crashed along with its tourism. Demand for the country’s famed flowers wilted. Dutch growers had to destroy hundreds of millions of tulips, daffodils, and other blossoms. The venerable Keukenhof garden resorted to virtual tours in 2020.
“It was sad,” says Caroline Dignum, who owns a tulip, daffodil, and crocus farm with her husband Ronald in North Holland. “We had to destroy a lot of bulbs that demanded a lot of work and care.”
It was not the first time the Netherlands, which produces some 90 percent of the world’s tulips, has seen its renowned floral market wither, writes photographer Muhammed Muheisen. “The most famous instance was back in the 1630s, when tulpenmanie (tulip mania) meant the value of a single flower bulb soared up to 10 times the average worker’s annual income before the market suddenly crashed in 1637.”
Interestingly, a virus was also to blame for the “beautiful curse” that produces distinctive streaks in the broken tulips that had speculators going gaga for rare and delicate blooms. The novel coronavirus, on the other hand, brought no such opportunity.
Blooms and buds are a major tourist draw for the Netherlands, and a sunnier outlook is now blossoming in the Bollenstreek (bulb region). “Everybody in my region is feeling optimistic this year,” says Dignum. (Pictured at top, harvesting tulips near the Dutch town of Lisse; above, tulips and daffodils blooming in adjoining fields near Den Helder.)
Photo editor Gail Fletcher produced this story, something of a side project from Muheisen, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and founder of the Dutch nonprofit Everyday Refugees Foundation, which helps people displaced internally by war, natural disasters, discrimination, and poverty. (Above, he photographed Mevouw Both, 90, while she enjoyed her time at the Keukenhof garden.)
“While Muhammed continues his work on the challenges facing refugees, he recently spent time at home in the Netherlands, exploring the industry behind the famous flowers,” says Fletcher. “No matter what he focuses on, he shares stories of resiliency.”
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YOUR INSTAGRAM OF THE DAY
Driving home: One evening, photographer Steven Gaskin saw the southern California skies get more vibrant with the fading light. “Eventually, I saw the line of palm trees in front of the mountains, and knew I’d have to pull over for a shot,” he tells us of this image of Indio, California. Gaskin’s parents recently moved to the desert, in the Coachella Valley. He calls the area “a unique oasis of meticulously manicured landscaping surrounded by rugged natural beauty.”
The sounds of silence: A quiet California road trip
TODAY IN A MINUTE
What’s up at Everest: This is the first real climbing season in two years at Mount Everest, but a COVID-19 outbreak could spell disaster instead of comeback for Nepal. This season, the country has issued the most climbing permits ever, which could backfire if there’s a viral outbreak at base camp. “It looks like that might be happening now,” climber, writer, and National Geographic Explorer Mark Synnott tells Nat Geo. The pandemic didn’t stop a Sherpa guide from scaling the mountain for the 25th time, breaking his own records at the world’s highest peak, the Associated Press reports.
Speaking of mountains: Only 44 people have reached the summit of all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks. Or maybe not. Exactly what “counts” as a summit? Researchers are now raising doubts about past accomplishments and setting new standards for future ones, the New York Times reports.
Opening soon: Obviously, travel is down in New York City, but hotels there are starting to open. Some hotels suffered construction delays as the pandemic lingered, but many are on track to open this year, or next, regardless of the market. Launching in this environment is a balancing act between too soon or too late, the Wall Street Journal reports. Expect the unexpected: One hotel, the TWA at JFK airport, is offering roller skating around a 1958 Lockheed Constellation airplane, at its outdoor rink.
The battle to save Britain’s oldest factory: Big Ben and the Liberty Bell were made at the Whitehorse Foundry in London. But since it closed in 2017, there’s been a raging battle over its future. Developers planned a boutique hotel with a rooftop pool on the site, but a coalition has been fighting to keep Whitehorse as a working foundry. That coalition doesn’t include foundry owner Alan Hughes. “I think it has to be appreciated that nobody now actually needs bells,” he told the Guardian.
Hesitant to travel: An increasing number of Asian Americans are uncomfortable traveling locally or internationally, as hate incidents have climbed, a new study from Temple University shows. “Travel is thought of as a leisure activity, but why would a person want to travel if they do not know how they will be received when they arrive at their destination?” says Robert Li, one of the study’s researchers.
THE BIG TAKEAWAY
Otherworldly? That’s a common view of the narrow canyons, mesas, and rock formations of Utah’s Zion National Park. The human history of this 148,732-acre park dates back some 10,000 years, and it is easy to feel contemplative there, Norie Quintos writes in the June issue of National Geographic. She quotes author and environmentalist Terry Tempest Williams as saying: “Every pilgrimage to the desert is a pilgrimage to the self. There is no place to hide, and so we are found.” (Pictured above, an adventurer navigates through a narrow canyon at Zion.)
IN A FEW WORDS
I took a surf lesson, and the minute I stepped on the board, I thought, “This is it. This is what I’ve been missing.” I knew it instinctively.
Gwenna “GiGi” Gainer Lucas, Executive director of a nonprofit seeking to bring gender and racial diversity to surfing, From: Breaking New Waves
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ONE LAST GLIMPSE
A peculiar species: This illustration of sand dollars and heart urchins shows the diversity of echinoids, a class of marine animals. The type of “eccentric” sand dollar that washes up on San Francisco’s Ocean Beach can live up to 15 or 20 years, Jordan Kushins writes for Nat Geo. They range in size from the diameter of a quarter, when they're young, to that of a baseball at full size. Each sand dollar has a distinctive five-petal pattern, or petaloid; the petals permit the animal to breathe underwater, Kushins writes. They’re gills, basically.
This newsletter has been curated and edited by Monica Williams and David Beard, and Jen Tse selected the photographs. Have an idea or a link? We'd love to hear from you at david.beard@natgeo.com. And thanks for reading!
