As the Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata accurately noted, one flower conveys the splendor of a flower better than a hundred. But there is still something bewitching in the endless purple sea of lavender fields of Provence, and in the Kazakh steppe red with poppies, and in the usual carpet of dandelions that covers lawns in central Russia in the spring. Many flowers are beautiful. You can see a lot of flowers, both the same and different, at once at flower festivals taking place all over the world.
Many of them occur during the most active flowering period of plants – in spring. A striking example: the Japanese Hanami, the festival of cherry blossoms, that is, cherry blossoms. The whole country, from small to large, rushes to gardens and parks to admire the trees in a delicate white and pink haze. They come both day and night (in the dark the sakura is specially illuminated),
they spread rugs on the grass and have picnics. Sometimes space on lawns has to be taken in advance: there are many beauty lovers, and beauty is short-lived – sakura blooms for about 10 days. True, if you drive through Japan from south to north, you can stretch out the hanami for three months: the first flowers in the south of the country appear in March, and the last petals from the northern trees fly around in May. One of the most famous festival places is Ueno Park in Tokyo, and the official start of hanami in the Japanese capital is given by sakura at Yasukuni Shrine, which usually blooms at the end of March.
Photo: info-provence.com
In southern Europe, spring comes early, in February. It was then that the Mimosa Festival took place on the Côte d’Azur of France, in the town of Mandelieu-la-Napoule, not far from Cannes. In 2017 it will take place on February 15-22. The 10-day celebration, which dates back to 1931, opens with a ceremonial service in the chapel of Notre Dame des Mimosas and the election of the Queen of Mimosa. Colorful processions take place every day along the city streets. Their indispensable attribute is giant sculptures made of flowers, the creation of which takes up to 12 tons of mimosa grown right here on the Cote d’Azur. By the way, these yellow fluffy balls are actually the flowers not of mimosa, but of its distant relative, silver acacia, but the erroneous name has become very firmly attached to them in everyday life.
The main flower of April is, perhaps, the tulip, the festival of which takes place, for example, in Istanbul. In the parks of the largest city in Turkey, from which tulips were once brought to Europe, millions of these flowers of various shades bloom. At the end of April, the Bloemencorso Bollenstreek flower parade starts in the Netherlands, the main supplier of tulips to today’s world market. Sculptures of tulips, daffodils and hyacinths travel 42 kilometers, from Noordwijk to Haarlem. The route passes through the Keukenhof park, also known as the Garden of Europe, one of the best places in all of Holland to admire tulips.
Photo: laredoturismo.es
However, you don’t have to wait until next spring to visit the flower festival. Those who are going on a summer vacation, but have not yet decided on a route, should take a closer look at the town of Laredo in the north
Spain, where the Battle of Flowers (Batalla de Flores) has been taking place since 1908. This year it will take place on August 26. The battle is a competition of imagination and skill between local residents who hand-create giant carrosas flower sculptures for the holiday. Various flowers are used, mainly chrysanthemums, dahlias and carnations. One sculpture takes up to 120 thousand. Everyone can look into the workshops where carrosas are made the night before the holiday. Its culmination is a parade of sculptures that are carried around the city on special platforms, accompanied by orchestras, and the election of the best one. It all ends with fireworks, which occurs exactly at midnight. There are similar battle festivals in other cities, for example, in Italian Ventimiglia or Spanish Valencia.
Another option for a summer trip is the capital of Belgium, Brussels. From August 12 to 15, the Grand Place in the Gothic center of the city will be covered with a giant carpet of flowers measuring 75 x 24 m, created by hundreds of professional gardeners and volunteers. They “weave” it every two years – the current carpet will be the twentieth anniversary one. The best view is from above, from the balcony of the city hall. The design, different each time, is made mainly from local begonias (Belgium is the world leader in their cultivation: of the 60 million flowers, 80% is exported),
resistant to both heat and dank dampness. In addition to the unique spectacle of the flower carpet, festival guests enjoy a nightly light show.
Photo: corsozundert.nl
The first weekend of September marks one of the largest flower festivals in the world – Bloemencorso Zundert. It is held in the south of the Netherlands, near the border with Belgium, in Van Gogh’s hometown (literally translated, its name means “Zundert City Flower Parade”),
by volunteers from 20 surrounding villages. The main flower of the holiday is the dahlia.
On October 29, at the height of spring in the southern hemisphere, the annual 8-day Jacaranda Festival kicks off in Grafton, New South Wales. This exotic tree is native to South America, Africa, southern Europe and here in Australia. It’s worth coming here not only for the rich program (parade, election of the Jacaranda Queen, sports competitions, concerts, dances) and impressive photos of streets strewn with purple flowers, but also to check out the local superstition: whoever has a jacaranda flower fall on their head will certainly have good luck .
If you prefer roses to all exotic flowers, you will have to wait until 2017. The Queen of Flowers is dedicated to two holidays in the United States with more than 100 years of history: the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California, and the Rose Festival in Portland, Oregon. The first one starts exactly at the beginning of next year, on January 2. And the second, whose program, in addition to the Great Flower Parade, stretching for almost 7 kilometers, includes many other processions, sports competitions and concerts, takes place at the end of May – June.
At the beginning of June 2017, the traditional Rose Festival will be held in the Bulgarian cities of Karlovo and Kazanlak, which will be of interest not only to flower lovers, but also to gourmets. After all, its main character, the oil rose, serves as raw material for the production of sweets and alcohol (as well as natural cosmetics and perfume). At the festival you can learn everything about the production of pink delicacies and taste them.
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