Famous Flower Parade – Bloemencorso – Netherlands-2025

Who loves a parade? How about a parade entirely made up of flowers, bulbs, and other plants? We do! The Bloemencorso, or Flower Parade, is the highlight of the Tulip Festival in the Netherlands. You will not want to miss it!

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When you think of the Netherlands, so many iconic things come to mind. There are wooden shoes, tulips, windmills, and bikes! The annual tulip festival and flower parade highlight everything Dutch, as well as floats and costumes to follow the yearly theme. To experience Dutch Tulip Season, you definitely won’t want to miss this spectacle.

What is the Blumencorso?

The Bloemencorso (flower parade) is usually held around the middle of April, and the route is almost 30 kilometers long, stretching through 10 towns. This year, the Blowemencorso will be on April 12th. These towns throughout the Bollenstreek (flower region) all produce giant floats that hundreds of volunteers have worked on during the 2-3 days prior.

In the past, each town held its own small flower parade, but so much work goes into the parade floats that now it is just one massive flower river winding through the central flower region of the Netherlands. There are so many advantages for us visitors doing it this way. To begin with, the route is so long that there is plenty of room for everyone to have a great view.

There are entire lengths of road where the parade passes through that have no one standing there. In saying that, however, there are still plenty of people, and some towns get very crowded.

The Flower Parade

The parade floats, complete with giant flowers, giant bikes, giant birds, and exotic animals, all line up the night before the bloemencorso in the center of Noordwijkerhout, where they are illuminated in the evening.

The procession begins promptly at 9:30, it’s not too early so you have plenty of time that morning to get some good photos as they are preparing or go stake out a fantastic vantage point somewhere along the route. After viewing the parade, go to Keukenhof Gardens where you can enjoy the exhibits without fighting the crowds who will line up for the parade in the afternoon.

There are grandstands in many of the towns. Dutch weather can be highly unpredictable in April. There will be sun and rain, rain and sun, usually within the same 24 hours. These intermittent bouts of sun and rain will also be accompanied by a strong breeze as well, and the temperatures can range from mild to freezing.

The grandstands provide you shade from the sun, shelter from the rain, and a place to get a little higher viewpoint. There are many types of tickets when purchasing the grandstand seats, but all sell out, so buy your tickets as soon as possible.

They also include a free coffee when you sit down to keep you nice and warm. However, the biggest benefit of buying a grandstand ticket is that parade marshals are making sure that no one obstructs the viewers since they paid for their ticket and are supporting the show.

Where to Watch the Flower Parade

Taking a look at the route schedule below will give you some ideas about where you want to be. As you can see, they gather in Noordwijkerhout, and then the parade starts at 9:00 in the morning and goes all day long! Can you imagine how tired they must be at the end?

Each town does things a bit differently. Most of them provide some music entertainment the half hour before the flower parade begins, which loosens up the crowd around you and helps you connect with your seat neighbors.

The other thing the towns do is to celebrate their citizens. The local kids will usually lead the parade into their town. It’s fun to see how they decorate their bikes, wagons, and scooters with flowers. It is one of the highlights for each town to see their kids in the parade.

Friday
18:00 – Night illumination and parade in Noorwijkerhout

Saturday
09:00 Noordwijk
10:45 Voorhout
11:50 Sassenheim
14:30 Lisse
15:45 Lisse near Keukenhof
16:30 Hillegom
18:00 Bennebroek
19:55 Heemstede
21:05 Haarlem

Noordwijkerhout

The floats are brought to Noordwijkerhout on Friday. Here they line up, and do a nighttime illuminated parade through the town. Then they are all queued up ready for the big event on Saturday.

It’s also the place of the Noorwijkerhout flower show, which we really enjoyed as well.

Noordwijk

The parade starts here, bright and early. It’s going to be the coldest part of the day, but the participants will be at their freshest.

The day before is the Mooiste File parade of flower-decorated cars. If you miss the parade, you can visit the parked cars all weekend.

Voorhout

This is our favorite place to watch the parade. It’s not as popular as some of the other spots, so even though there still were plenty of people, it felt calmer. We staked out spots right next to the grandstand and found free parking right there.

The grandstand was right across the street from a bakery, the Bakker Van Maanen, where we indulged in some tasty Dutch pastries and coffee.

Sassenheim

The first time we went, we bought seats in the grandstand. It was so much fun; the crowd really got into it. Sassenheim is probably my next pick as the best place to watch the parade.

There are some great hotels here; we stayed at the Van der Valk Sassenheim, which was a short 5-minute walk to the grandstand and right on the parade route and the Behind the Scenes event before the parade.

Another good reason to make this your flower parade viewing spot is that the parade also stops in Sassenheim for lunch, so after the procession is finished, you can wander among the parade floats to get some really great photos.

Keukenhof

Probably the most crowded place to watch the parade is near Keukenhof Gardens. The flower parade reaches this Dutch landmark at about 3:30 PM. Personally, I wouldn’t watch the parade from this point since there are plenty of other places that have fewer spectators.

Haarlem

If you are still in the area on the 13th of April starting at 5:00 PM, you can go to Haarlem city center to get your last look, and maybe some photographs, of the floats.

Myth-busting

Most people think the floats are made out of tulips, but they are not. Tulips are much more valuable than that and aren’t a suitable medium for pinning into a design. Instead, most of the float is made up of chrysanthemum petals. Additionally, there are many varieties of flowers used to accentuate the design, like using the tulip bulbs for specific parts of the float. We watched this in action at the Behind the Scenes event in Sassenheim.

Like all parades, it is free unless you shell out the money to sit in the grandstand. However, there are volunteers dressed up like various Dutch flowers that wander through the crowd collecting donations to help defray the costs of these fantastic floats. Our Dutch friend said one Euro was the perfect donation, and as the collectors walked through the crowds, they would jingle their bags. There was no pressure, but what a great way of giving back.

Practical Information for the Tulip Festival and Flower Parade:

The flower parade route may change a little each year, so it’s a good idea to check it before you come. You can find out everything you need to know about the Bloemcorso at their website, here.  

Cost: Grandstand tickets, just for seats, start at 29.50 Euros each, and you can buy them online along with parking tickets. You don’t have to necessarily pay for parking if you leave your car at your hotel or find a lucky spot, but the parking areas are very close to the parade route, and it costs 5 Euros per day. Plenty of parade marshals are out directing traffic, so you won’t have to worry about setting a parking area in your GPS.

What to bring and wear: It’s a parade with plenty of room, so if you can bring a folding chair or blanket to sit on it’s a good idea. Don’t forget to bring an umbrella, and wear a waterproof jacket. Dress in layers as the weather will probably change frequently.

What to eat: Luckily, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to eat great Dutch food. Their most well-known dish is probably pancakes, but you will have plenty of choice.

Our Rating

Hands down, the Flower Parade deserves 5 full stars! From the kid’s decorated bikes to the marching bands and the stunning floats, this parade has it all! All I can say is, GO!

If you can’t make it this year, the next couple are: April 18, 2026 and April 17, 2027.

Conclusion

Even though the tulip season lasts about a month, the absolute best time to go is the weekend of the Flower Parade, the Bloemencorso!

Author Bio: Corinne Vail is a travel photographer, food lover, and a perpetual traveler who has been travel writing for over 14 years. For many years she lived overseas in Germany, Japan, Turkey, South Korea, and the Netherlands teaching the children of the US. military. She’s visited over 90 countries, and she’s not stopping anytime soon.