APRIL 2021
Visiting the daffodil fields at FAM Flower Farm was the only activity that I booked in 2020 for 2021. When I booked in December 2020 it seemed pretty logical that we would be able to visit in March 2021, but that wasn’t the case at all. Last year this event was canceled because of COVID and this year it again was unclear if we would be able to go because of the virus. Luckily, we received an email from FAM Flower Farm a few days before our scheduled visit that we were welcome to visit the daffodil fields with some minor changes to the schedule!
About FAM Flower Farm
FAM Flower Farm is a plant nursery owned by two lovely women. Depending on the season you can book visits to a field of daffodils (narcissen in Dutch), tulips or dahlias. Last year I visited the dahlia fields and was amazed by the large range of beautiful dahlias. You can read all about this experience here. At the website of FAM Flower Farm you can also buy super special tubers, so you will have the most beautiful flowers in your garden! They have amazing gift opportunities too, so if you are looking for a gift for a flower lover, their website is the place to be. FAM Flower Farm is responsible for the come back of the dahlia and they also created a book with beautiful pictures of dahlias.
Our COVID visit to the daffodil fields
When you book a visit to FAM Flower Farm you usually book a time slot of 1,5 hours in which you are able to wander through the fields freely. You will share this time slot with about 30 people. Marlies and Linda will welcome you personally and they will tell you the story of FAM Flower Farm and explain about the growth process of the flowers. Because of COVID there was no plenary welcome word, but instead you received a smaller time slot of 15 minutes to arrive. From that time on you were allowed to spend 1,5 hours in the fields by yourself and you would encounter less other people. The visits are added to the website months in advance and pre-COVID a lot of foreigners also booked slots. This year, the daffodil fields bloomed a lot later than usual, because we still had snow in February (and April… pfff…). FAM Flower Farm informed us that we were also allowed to visit the fields one week later and if we wanted to cancel our visit, we would get our money back. Some rows of daffodils were blooming after all, so we decided to visit on our original date. We already had a nice day planned in which we would also visit the Cherry Blossom Park in Amsterdam and would visit a friend in Almere. Still, I really liked how the ladies of FAM Flower Farm went out of their way to give us a nice visit.
As we were one of the only guests because of COVID we decided to bring our drone. Unfortunately it was extremely windy so we didn’t make any videos, but I still really like the few drone pictures that we were able to take. For Instagram I replaced the stormy sky for a blue sky, but on the blog you get the real experience 😉 We were able to warm up and have some coffee in the greenhouse next to the field. Little Hugo was in the baby carrier the whole time while Hielke was taking pictures of me. I would have loved pictures of him in the fields but it was too cold to take him out of the carrier. FAM Flower Farm provides you with fun props such as flower baskets and buckets for your pictures.
Traveling with a kid during COVID
Traveling with a kid during COVID is quite a feat and it requires more planning than usual. With COVID lots of visits are timed and I find it quite a struggle to make it in time. Luckily, we almost finished our van build and this gives us much more flexibility when we are doing day trips. Restaurants are still closed per March 2021, so when you are doing a trip on a cold day it is hard to find shelter to feed your kid and change diapers. We took the unfinished van to the flower fields as this provided us sufficient space to change Hugo’s diapers, he had a space to nap and we were able to use the hot water to make him a bottle of milk. The added benefit of taking the van was that we could bring a big bucket for the daffodils of FAM Flower Farm and the tulips that we bought at Jan van der Slot. We will go on a two week trip with our van soon, so will keep you updated about the traveling with a kid part 😉
Cherry Blossom Park
If you have been following along for a while you know that I make a yearly visit to the Cherry Blossom Park in Amsterdam. This year the visit was slightly different because of COVID. Usually, you can roam around freely in the park, but this year only 150 people were allowed in at once. On our way back from Lisse we decided to quickly visit the Cherry Blossom Park. When we visited the park wasn’t in full bloom yet so the queue wasn’t too bad, I think we had to wait for about 15 minutes before we could get in. I would have loved to have gone back the next week but the weather wasn’t very good and the queues during the Easter weekend were incredibly long. If you want to read my blog about visiting the park during a “normal” year you can check it out here.
