Spring has been extremely late this year and although Keukonhof opened its doors to tourists in March as usual, there wasn’t much to see till late April. However, by May, things were back on track and we got our fill of fields of tulips stretching for miles and miles:

Although tulips dominate the fields around Keukehof, you do come across other varieties of flowers:

I remember this field not only because of a strong, pleasant smell that the breeze carried to us but also because of the houses that looked perfectly colour coordinated with the flowers.

It was an extremely windy day and cycling occasionally took some effort despite the well-maintained, dedicated biking lanes. We kept stopping for breaks in these fields and kept forgetting our fatigue.

Although you see millions of tulips around you, you’d be hard pressed to find a shop selling a bouquet for your home. You do come across these small, unmanned stalls that work on honour system. The hand-written signs tell you how much you should pay for each bouquet. You take the bouquet and leave the correct amount in a box near by.

The park closes at 6:00 PM and the bicycle rental an hour after that. With the evening getting colder and wind fiercer, we reluctantly turned back to return but took our own sweet time, stopping several times along the way:

Kenukenhof has now become an annual spring ritual of sorts for us, the sort that your year feels incomplete without.

The first time I saw these lamps attached to the bridges, I thought that witches had parked their brooms and conical hats there.

Cycling to (and in) Westerpark on a sunny weekend afternoon for a small picnic is one of those simple pleasures of life that cost you nothing but leave you happy and relaxed. The municipality does its bit by providing these plastic sheets to sit on and, when done, to neatly bundle and throw away your trash in.

This was our second Queen’s Day. We had slunk off to Luxembourg last year but since this year the Queen was abdicating in favour of her son, we decided to stay on and enjoy the show. We weren’t disappointed.

We emerged from the Torino Porto Nuova railway station on to Via Roma – a road lined with glitzy fashion brand showrooms and hotels.

Around here, we came across a mall building that was either abandoned or under renovation.

Turin is full of historical buildings, palaces and cathedrals. During our walk through the city we must’ve walked past several of them but I still remember Palazzo Carignano because of it’s beautiful façade. It’s a façade that I’d struggle to draw on a piece of paper. I find it quite a feat that someone not only imagined it but brought it to life in three dimensions. The building now houses the Museum of the Risorgimento.

Another prominent and long street (road?) in Turin is the Via Po. I had to cross it twice to get this shot:

From Via Po we wandered off to Mole Antonelliana – a tall building that kept reminding me of Buddhist Pagodas of Indonesia. It houses the National Museum of Cinema. Once we were inside, it became evident to us that it would take us an entire day to see the museum alone. But since we had just a couple of hours to spare, we brought the tickets to the viewing gallery on the top floor. An elevator took us there after some 30 minutes of waiting in a queue for a view of Turin in the golden dusk sunlight that was every bit worth the wait.

We got back to Via Po and turned around to get back to the station with some minor detours to get the last photos in the fast fading light: