Dann and I love walking around flower gardens, taking pictures of the different flowers and just hanging out with each other. Botanical gardens feel like such a nice way to slow down, so one afternoon while in Amsterdam, we figured we’d head over to De Hortus, which we saw on our canal tour. This huge botanical garden has a large outdoor area, which is where we started. There are a few different trails and maps for different walks, all featured just inside the entrance. There is also a meeting point for guided tours, which happen during specific events.
Dann and I started in the outdoor bit, exploring a bunch of different flowers and plants. De Hortus has a lot of little signs that do tell you about the particular flowers, but we were mainly enjoying looking at them. I really loved the selection of dahlia’s in the outdoor section, which always look so beautiful and were perfectly in bloom. There was also a cute pond, full of flowers and large lily pads, as well as a sort of wall garden, up on a ledge, which had some very interesting moss and plants.
There were a few greenhouses at De Hortus, one of which is used as an education area, another that was closed but seemed to be a workshop of sorts, and a third which was a fantastic butterfly house. This butterfly house was the size of a greenhouse, full of plants, but inside were loads and loads of butterflies. For whatever reason, they kept landing onto Dann and hanging out with him, which was very magical – at one point he had three different butterflies on him at once.
We then went into a huge indoor plant area, that sort of had large doors open to the outside. This place had stairs, so you can walk up and see the very top of some giant plants! It’s a great place for pictures. There were interactive spaces, where you could learn more about the flowers and push open little doors to see different seeds from plants that they have or see how a big plant grows throughout the ages. These were cute and felt like a good educational moment. Another big building allowed us to go into a warmer mixed outdoor and indoor area that had a bunch of plants we recognised, before going into an area where there was a projected video about gardens and plants on the ceiling. There was also a thing inside one area here, where you put your elbows on a table and could hear information about the plants if you covered your ears. It was wild!
From here, De Hortus had two doors; one to a dessert which was full of cactus and other plants, in sand, and a rainforest biome that had a bunch of plants that needed a lot of water! It was a bit warm and foggy in the rainforest, but there were very good levels to walk around, with small bridges and plants more low towards the grass. We were surprised by how many plants growing fruit were int his area, with bugs dipping around to eat them. It’s so neat!
De Hortus is a very beautiful place, with plenty of benches touched away if you want to slow down and relax. There are even some birds flying around, making noises that you can spot if you are careful enough. We saw some people reading books and chatting quietly, while others were taking pictures similar to us. It’s just a lovely, relaxing place.
You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!