Nothing pleases the eye more after a monochrome winter than the bright colors of awakening nature – spring flowers. If you’re yearning for sweet aromas and colorful landscapes, we have a recipe for spring therapy – a trip to blooming Europe. In our selection about where, when and what blooms!
Sakura – streets of Bonn, Germany
Photo: @henry_do/@neskirimli/Instagram.com
To see cherry blossoms, you don’t have to fly to Japan. The streets of the German city of Bonn, planted with cherry trees, turn into a fairyland every April. Since the cherry tree blooms before it leaves, for a time it seems that winter has returned, covering the trees and streets with snow. Only this snow is pink, warm and fragrant!
Maki – hills of Val d’Orcia, Italy
Photo: @dennis.hellwig/Instagram.com
The most flourishing part of Tuscany is so beautiful that it is even classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The cultural landscape of Val d’Orcia was the result of the idea of the authorities of the city-state of Siena to create an ideal, aesthetically consistent landscape. In late April and early May, the flat plains and perfectly conical hills turn crimson red with endless fields of poppies in bloom. Then bright colors of other colors are gradually added to them, decorating these places until autumn.
Tulips – Keukenhof Flower Park, Netherlands
Photo: @keukenhof.photographer/@eatdrinkrunrepeat/Instagram.com
In the small town of Lisse near Amsterdam, the Keukenhof Royal Flower Park is open to visitors from March 20 to May 20. The huge area, which was once a hunting ground, was converted into a large park, which since the middle of the last century has been used by producers and exporters as a visual exhibition for the flower trade. The famous Dutch tulips are the first to bloom here – 4.5 million flowers of one hundred different varieties decorate the park in all the colors of the rainbow!
Bluebells – forests and national parks, England
Every spring, numerous forests in England are covered with a colorful carpet of bluebells. In the rays of the sun breaking through the crowns, they shimmer in all shades from purple to soft blue, beckoning you to go on a long walk towards forest fairies and fauns. The Great Forest in Norfolk is considered one of the best places for bluebell field walks. However, it is not inferior in beauty to the wild landscapes of Dartmoor National Park and Hutchlands Park in the Surrey Hills.
Hortensia – Azores, Portugal
Photo: @rodrigogonvaz/@kolkrabenjan/Instagram.com
The archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean is often called the Hawaii of Europe due to its volcanic origin and distance from the continent. However, this is where the similarities end; unlike the tropical climate of the Polynesian islands, eternal fresh spring reigns in the Azores. And among the flowers, the symbol of the islands has become the hydrangea, which grows everywhere, from wild hills to neat city streets and gardens. So, on the island of Faial there are so many hydrangeas of all shades of blue that it is even called the “Blue Island”.
Almonds – Alpujarra Valleys, Spain
Photo: @josefmh81/Instagram.com
The Sierra Nevada mountain peaks rise against a bright blue sky and frame wide, rolling valleys lined with almond orchards. Almond trees, like sakura, bloom in the spring before their leaves, enveloping the valley in a pale pink mist of petals flying into the distance with every breath of wind.
Daffodils – Jesenica, Slovenia
Photo: Ales Krivec
The small town of Jesenice is located at the foot of two mountains: Golika and Mala Golika. In May, the northern slope of the smaller of these mountains is covered with a thick snow-white carpet of millions of tiny flowers. Wild daffodils bloom for two weeks a year, and there are so many of them that the air becomes thick with a sweet, intoxicating aroma. There are rarely tourists on the spacious slope, and only lonely signs ask guests of the valley not to pick or trample flowers, but to carefully admire the nature and beauty of the daffodil fields against the backdrop of the still snow-capped peaks of the Julian Alps at this time.
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