If you’re beginning to make your plans for visiting Europe and you want to enjoy its springtime in all of its colorful glory,  we recommend the best spot to see it happen before your eyes. Go to Keukenhof Gardens, just a 20-minute bus trip from Amsterdam, The Nethelands.

We were told about it at our bed and breakfast next to the canal near the city's Van Gogh museum while on a springtime roaming trip through Northern Europe. So we took the bus along the colorful Dutch countryside, hopped off, paid our 11 Euros and entered the gates of the Gardens.

The date was May 1, so what could be a more appropriate day for seeing newly-blooming flowers? Not just flowers, but Holland's national symbol, the tulip, in all its glory. Every fall and early spring for the past 60 years, more than seven million bulbs have been meticulously planted by hand and nurtured at the Gardens.

We arrived at Keukenhof on exactly the right day, maybe even the right hour, to see the blossoms at the very peak of their beauty. We were told that because of weather differences, sometimes the full blooming happens as early as late March, or as late as early June. Walking through the fantastically brilliant whites, blues, reds, oranges, purples and yellows along the 70 acres was like a stroll in heaven itself.

There are other flower sections that feature different spring beauties: daffodils, hyacinths, narcissi and many others. They add their colors, sights and aromas to the overall experience of the Keukenhof wonders.

In addition to Keukenhof, we visited all the other wonderful sights of the Netherlands, including all Amsterdam has to offer: museums, canals, windmills, naughty nightlife, cafes and marketplaces. But the one image we took away with us as representative of glorious springtime in that beautiful country was of the endless fields of brilliantly-colored tulips in bloom.