BY ELLEN CREAGER
FREE PRESS TRAVEL WRITER
May 1, 2005
HOLLAND –Wooden shoes. Windmills. Tulips. All those names that start with “Vander.”
RELATED CONTENT
If you go to Holland, Michigan
In Michigan, the images don’t prompt us to think of the faraway Netherlands. We think of our own Holland.
The tulips are blooming in Holland, Michigan
Tulips bright colored and gay /
The tulips are blooming in Holland, Michigan…
That’s a fragment of a song I learned in first grade in the early 1960s, when Holland seemed as exotic and exciting as the moon.
Since then, a lot has changed in this city near Lake Michigan. But one thing never changes: the Tulip Time Festival, which runs for a week beginning Saturday.
For 76 years, the town’s Dutch heritage has been celebrated, big time, each spring. This year, streets will rock with parades, a carnival, food festival and 6 million tulips — if the weather cooperates.
“Will the tulips bloom? They are a great unknown to us; the show will depend on when they peak,” says Tamra Bouman, director of Tulip Time. “While the queen of the festival is the tulip, this is not a flower show.”
Organizers say last weekend’s snow shouldn’t affect the tulips; if anything, it slowed down some of the early bloomers, which is good, says Bouman. Between 400,000 and 600,000 visitors, including Gov. Jennifer Granholm, are expected from as far away as Pennsylvania and Ontario. That is down from 1 million decades ago. But because Tulip Time was recently mentioned in an episode of television’s “The Simpsons,” the festival may draw new Homers and Marges, organizers hope.
Many visitors will be day-trippers. Holland is about 3 1/2 hours west of Detroit. A new I-96 bypass south of Grand Rapids, M-6, shortens the trip.
“If people say, let’s jump in the car and visit, they can do that,” Bouman says. Unlike the old days, tickets are easily available online at www.tuliptime.com.
One highlight will be the Volksparade on May 11. That afternoon, citizens don Dutch costumes, bring out brooms and scrub the streets of town. That’s to celebrate the legendary tidiness of the first residents of Holland, who settled the city in 1847. It’s also a traditional appearance for Michigan governors. On May 12, thousands of children march in the Kinderparade, and on May 14, the big Meijer Muziekparade will feature 40 bands, floats and entertainers.
The festival also will have 1,700 costumed Klompen dancers in the wooden shoes of yesteryear, plus a garden show, beer and music festival, art show, Dutch market place and Taste of Holland. The festival even has its own beer, Red Tulip Ale, made by the New Holland Brewing Co.
In a nod to the changing demographics of Holland, May 7 is also the day of Fiesta!, a Latin American festival at the Civic Center from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., free and open to Tulip Time visitors. Entertainment, food, music, a queen and a car show are all part of Fiesta!
The over-arching theme of all events is to celebrate spring — and the unique cultures that have shaped the town.
Says Bouman: “We’re opening day for tourist season in Michigan.”
Traditional sites
If you have not been to Holland since the 1980s, you will be surprised how it has changed — for the better, and without losing its precise character.
All summer, Windmill Island celebrates all things Dutch with its 244-year-old De Zwann (The Swan) black-bladed windmill. It towers over shops and old-fashioned bridges on an island just north of downtown along Lake Macatawa.
Dutch Village, a few miles away on U.S.-31, may be surrounded by the looming Holland Outlet Center, but its Klompen shop retains its wooden shoe carving demonstrations and Dutch memorabilia. Among the nicest local products are the graceful wooden salad bowls made by the Holland Bowl Mill. The Klompen shop is open year-round.
Veldheer Tulip Gardens and DeKlomp Wooden Shoe & Delft Factory remains on Quincy Street. It used to be in the country, but miles of development have put it squarely in the Holland suburbs. Still, Veldheer still has 30 acres of tulips, a huge gift shop wooden-shoe makers and potters creating traditional Dutch blue Delftware.
Downtown revival
The biggest change for those who haven’t visited Holland in a while? The downtown. It is beautifully restored.
“In 1986, the mall went up, and people in town decided that we could fold up and die, or we can do something to be vital and be great,” says Wendy Link of the Holland Area Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.
They ripped up downtown, renovated buildings, added brick sidewalks, Victorian lampposts, public sculpture and new stores. They heated the streets so snow melts in winter. Now, downtown Holland is part college town (Hope College is just off the main street), part shopping mecca; it’s part history, part multicultural modern. It has a 22-percent Hispanic/Latino population and an Irish mayor who prompted the first St. Patrick’s Day parade this year in the city’s history.
Nearby on the Lake Michigan shoreline, the Big Red lighthouse is one of the most photographed in Michigan. Holland State Park has camping and swimming. There are 150 miles of bike paths linking the town with neighboring communities. And it is near both Grand Rapids and the art meccas of Saugatuck and Douglas.
But the main photo-op remains Tulip Time, when miles of city gardens remind us that though times may change, you should always bloom where you’re planted.
