Talley Your Adventure – The Blog

Welcome back to #NationalParkWeek posts! Our last post to celebrate this week will focus on the Keukenhof Gardens, located in the Netherlands. I was very disappointed when I found out that the peak bloom season for the cherry blossom trees in D.C. started when I was going to be in Europe, so to make up for it we decided to go to Keukenhof instead! I found the gardens while we were watching Rick Steves. 🙂 It definitely more than made up for the blossoms!

Keukenhof is one of the world’s largest flower gardens, located in Lisse, South Holland. We were lucky because we have friends who live pretty close to the location who also were nice enough to pick us up in Amsterdam and drive us to the gardens for the day.

Keukenhof has some interesting history that dates back to the 15th century, with Countess Jacoba van Beieren would gather the fruits and vegetables from the area for the kitchen of Teylingen Castle. The Keukenhof Castle was built in 1641. The castle gardens were redesigned in 1857 by Jan David Zocher and his son, Louis Paul Zocher, in the English landscape style. In 1949 a plan was created to use the estate to exhibit spring-flowering bulbs. The park officially opened its gates to the public in 1950 and hosts a theme every year in honor of the various gardens. This year the theme is “Romance in Flowers”, and with the many beautiful colors arranged gorgeously around a grand landscape it definitely fits!

Windmills and clogs seem to be essential distinguishing aspects of Dutch culture (to us at least!) and they did not disappoint! There were opportunities to pose with the large clogs and the beautiful windmill surrounded by the gorgeous, bright flowers were a great backdrop. Another important Dutch icon is the tulip, which was the main reason we were visiting the gardens. The gardens were not all at their full bloom but that didn’t matter! These gorgeous flowers came to western Europe around the sixteenth century. Seventeenth century Netherlands produced the Dutch Golden Age and Tulip mania, which include creating variegated patters in the tulip flowers. From this point on, the Netherlands became the major producer of tulips at world markets.

By the way, the Dutch Golden Age will probably be mentioned throughout the next few articles when I describe our Europe trip in more details, but to tide you over for the moment remember that this was a 150 year span starting with the Thirty Years’ War and ended with the Netherlands becoming, at the time, the foremost maritime and economic power in the world.

Enjoy the slideshow of pictures – there were too many to include in only one post! Until next time, I hope you enjoyed National Park Week and were able to #FindYourPark wherever you are!

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After leaving Zadar we headed to Šibenik to stay one more night in Croatia before flying back to the Netherlands. Šibenik is just about an hour south of Zadar, and hosts one of the most beautiful National Parks I have seen! Krka National Park was actually a stop before heading to our Airbnb in the city later that evening. The park was designated a national park in 1985 primarily to serve as a science, culture, educational, and recreational competent. The park itself includes the Krka River, which is the 22nd longest river in Croatia. Flowing out of the Dinara mountain ranger, it includes seven waterfalls that are strewn across the park.

There are four ways to enter the park: Skradin, Bilice, Raslina, and Zaton. We entered through Skradin, a small town that connects to the park via a ferry ride (picture above, facing the entrance to Krka National Park). It wasn’t until around 1997 that the development of tourism resulted in a large change in the park boundaries to assist with protection of the park resources. It was really interesting to see such an active park, especially when coming from such a remote location in Sali only a couple days before. Krka National Park actually hosts a lot in regards to tourism, including a restaurant, sightseeing tours, souvenir shops, boat tours, and a museum. Because we were transitioning from one overnight location to another we had our backpacks with us and only a short amount of time to catch the only bus back into town so we were unable to do a boat tour, but we did the walking tour around the park to take in the sights!

The Skradiniski buk is a beautiful natural pool with high waterfalls almost completely surrounding the area, and it was out first stop on the walk. There is a large bridge that walks you around one side of the pool so you can take in the view and see the waterfalls.  It is the largest travertine cascade system in Europe. There is actually a total of 17 waterfalls. Can you spot them all?

We stuck to the education trail and took our time walking around and seeing the beautiful falls and scenery. We were able to see the water-powered plants that date back to the 19th century. During the summer they host demonstrations on how wheat was milled, cloth washed and more. Krka National Park also includes a monastery and archaeological site Burnum. There are many other falls along the way, like the one pictured on the left, but they all aren’t named because they aren’t a certain height or distance. Beautiful nonetheless! While we did not see everything there are other great things to offer for the next time we visit!

Visiting Krka National Park was one of our main goals when going to Croatia so we were so excited to be able to visit. Luckily it was during the slow season so there were not too many people visiting at the time. There are areas to swim, but at the time we arrive the water level was too high for swimming – plus I’d imagine it was cold!

Remember this week is still National Park Week! It doesn’t matter if you are near a national park, find a park close to you and visit for a day. Learn something new try something exciting, and remember to be a good steward to your parks!

In honor of #NationalParkWeek the following few posts will focus on the various nature parks and National Parks that Clinton and I visited during our European travels. First stop, Telašćica Nature Park, located on the island of Dugi Otok, Croatia.

Clinton and I were actually staying in Zadar, Croatia (blog post forthcoming), and decided that we would take a day trip out to the town of Sali to visit Telašćica Nature Park based on the suggestion of our Airbnb host. We found a ferry company to take us across from Zadar to the small town of Sali. It was a beautiful 45 minute ride! When we arrived, we had schedule someone to meet us in order to rent us bikes so we could bike the 12km to the park and back. While the bike ride was for the most part fun through the small town and out into the park, it was very hilly! But we made it! The park is gorgeous. Telašćica Bay is surrounded by 13 islands with 6 of them inside the bay itself. It was proclaimed a Nature Park in 1988, mainly because of its valuable plant and animal life, its geological and geomorphological phenomena, and its archaeological heritage.  When we arrived we were met with the beautiful beaches and coastline that is in direct contrast to the steep cliffs we walked up to later. We mainly stayed in the forest area, which is covered in Aleppo pine and holm oak. The park also includes vineyard and olive groves and a few dry habitats.

We biked out to the salt lake to walk around the first lake, and then hiked out a short distance to the second. At some point we walked up the hill to the top of the cliff and looked out at the Adriatic Sea…it is breathtaking! Staring out past the sea is Italy, if we actually saw any land. I personally love to (safely of course) look over the edge of cliffs so I did get one quick view before Clinton (who does not!) told me to come back. 🙂 We spent some time walking around the forest which was filled with trees and flowers of all kinds. Because it still is early in the Spring season, everything was just beginning to bloom but it smelled beautiful. The best part is that we literally were the only people there. We rode by a Ranger patrol vehicle – they just waved – and there were a few boats docked in the lake but other than that we had the park to ourselves! What a great experience.

I highly encourage anyone to take time and come out to their National Parks this coming week to celebrate National Park Week. If a national park is not close to where you live, go visit a state, city, or county park, or just find an area out in nature to walk through.