Holland is a great place to live. It attracts many visitors in the summer, especially during Tulip Time in May. Last May I enjoyed staying for a May term and watched Holland come alive with people everywhere. Each May Holland hosts an annual Tulip Time Festival. Tulip planting and the festival began in 1930 when 250,000 tulips were planted for the event. Currently six million tulips are used throughout the city. Tulips are planted along many city streets, in city parks and outside municipal buildings as well as at tourist attractions. Like Dutch Village, the city-owned Windmill Island Gardens, and at a large tulip farm named Veldheer Tulip Gardens. It is normally held the second week of May, right when the numerous tulips planted around the town are blooming.
About one million tourists visit Tulip Time each year, for which the community finds innovative ways to enhance self-funded projects. It has been ranked as America’s third largest town festival!
Currently Tulips are already blooming and the streets are beautiful! I walked through Centennial Park, which is only a block away from campus. While I walked, the birds chirped, the sun beamed down on my face, children ran around chasing each other, couples sat on the benches together, and the tulips swayed back and forth in the wind. I enjoyed spending some quiet alone time there and loved watching the simple joys in life.
Holland is such a beautiful place to live, and I would not trade anything for it. The beach is only a 15-minute drive or six-mile bike ride. I love the variety of sites to see in Holland, and I have never found myself without anything to do. I live in a town with about 117,000 people, and I feel like Holland has more stuff to do than Springfield. Hope also has a really great connection with the Holland community. The people are very friendly and welcoming to the Hope students. I honestly would not have been able to pick a better city to place Hope College.
If you are a prospective student and have not visited Hope yet, I highly recommend it. On campus visits really help you get a feel for the college, and I think once you spend time in Holland; you’ll fall in love with it.
Here are some pictures from Centennial Park
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