Floriade Expo

This second week of our holiday has disappeared in a whizz and I can't believe I'll be back at work on Monday.  I had hoped to have blogged about our time in Holland at the Floriade (a World Horticultural Expo) before now, so no time like the present.

David and I decided to buy tickets for two days before our trip and after our day in Maastricht, when the weather really perked up decided that Wednesday and Thursday would be good days to go.  Wednesday in particular was to be the driest and it was certainly the busiest.  The traffic, though busy kept moving and directions in the car park were well organised.  The park and ride bus service was caught out by the number of people but very soon extra buses came along and people were soon transported to the venue.

Venlo itself is in an area important for produce growing and the trade of fruit, vegetables and plants that we would normally see in our supermarkets or garden centres.  The Floriade site is very big and had four main areas and it took us both days to explore. Just passed the entrance people were greeting with a giant pair of wellie boots

 And that wasn't the only giant footwear there.  As you would expect in Holland there are clogs too

David could not resist taking a photo of a cow

She needed sunglasses as it was a sunny day!  There are some orange clogs on a display next to her - they're slippers!

This is what we'd come to see

Yes, there is a trampoline in this garden - there were two inset in garden and David took a photo of me on one, clearly I could not resist having a go.

Above are the European gardens.

We visited the education area which explained about methods of producing the fruit and veg that we eat and how science is leading to improving the quality of the produce, but there were some bizarre displays, like this Dutch "egg" shape

And in another building nearby were some clothes with fabric printed with pictures of produce

Found a Mini (proper old one) covered in grass

And some buildings with plant covered roofs

Perhaps its the quilter in me that liked taking mosaics, like in this Isreali garden.  The floor mosaics were reproductions of ones found in an ancient synagogue

And of course there were lots of flower photos

I'm just scraping the surface here, there'll be more photos soon