Kyushu Spring

Huis Ten Bosch Tulip Festival | Visit Nagasaki

The Huis Ten Bosch Tulip Festival is one of the most popular floral festivals in Japan. It has hardly been noticed to the people of Hokkaido. This could happen, as I don’t know much about the recommended tourist spots of Okinawa. The real fact behind this is – I live far away from Okinawa Island.

In general, I explore the festivals that are quite remarkable. That’s why, once I visited a small town called Sasebo, located in Nagasaki Prefecture. The town is very popular for its spring flower festival known as Huis Ten Bosch Tulip Matsuri.

It is a Dutch style theme park that offers a completely different atmosphere all year round, representing Dutch heritage and its stunning tulips gardens.

Huis ten Bosch in Nagasaki. Photo Credit: Yuki Shimazu at Flickr.

In Nagasaki, your entire trip is incomplete if you don’t pay a visit to this wonderful theme park. When spring is about to roll around, the flower gardens of Huis Ten Bosch becomes one of the coolest places on earth.

Don’t you believe me? Just take a look at the photographs I have uploaded here in this post.

The whole place would make you feel like you are somewhere else in Netherlands. If you are a Dutch tourist to Japan for this year springtime then please head to this theme park and be proud of yourself. For you it feels like – home sweet home!

What does Huis Ten Bosch offer to its visitors?

Windmill and colorful tulips! Photo Credit: Stacy Hadiwidjaja at Flickr.

The Huis Ten Bosch is considered the biggest theme park in Nagasaki Prefecture.

It is quite spacious and packed with charming European style architecture, canals, flower gardens, windmills, forest, restaurants & café, hotels, shops, museum, rides, harbor, theater, and everything that relates to amusement.

In fact, the theme park has everything to amuse everyone. Though this is a perfect holiday destination for children and teens alike.

The place can be divided into different areas that are widely known as: Flower Road, Adventure Park, Attraction Town, Tower City, Art Garden, Thriller City, Amsterdam City, Harbor Town and Forest Villa. Every area represents a great collection of fun things to experience.

For example, the flower road looks absolutely gorgeous with its windmills and tulips in the spring. And the replica of the beautiful Huis Ten Bosch palace is located in the area of Harbor Town.

Please note that to see the real Huis Ten Bosch Palace you have got to go to The Hague city, Netherlands.

There are number of events take place there, such as the Tulip Festival, begonia garden of lights, shibazakura festival, the Rose festival, Hydrangea flower festival, Masquerade ball carnival, Kingdom of light, and Kingdom of fire & light.

The flower festivals here are admired by many flower lovers including myself! It is very nice to see flowers of different kinds and that’s why often people recognize it as the kingdom of flower.

The Tulip Festival at Huis Ten Bosch

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A beautiful tulip landscape. Photo Credit: Ben Houdijk at Flickr.

The main objective of sharing this article with you is to make you familiar with the Tulip Matsuri, held at the Huis Ten Bosch in spring. Here, I won’t focus my other experiences except the tulip festival that I thoroughly enjoyed while traveling around it.

I would definitely tell you from where to go to shop and eat during your visit. If you want to catch some very exciting moments along with experiencing cherry blossom in Japan then you have got to come here.

It has so many pretty flowering views for spring season which sometimes make me say this “After winter, fresh buds bloom and animals awaken”. This is nothing but a magic show performed by the king of all season “SPRING”.

Every year, the festival draws millions of flower lovers. Once I was hunted by this just like others who had visited this great Dutch village of Japan.

Tulips were everywhere even inside a hotel (Hotel Europe) along with other spring flowers. Though if you ask me what dominate the most then I would say that’s tulip!

I was informed that there were more than 3 millions of tulips of 700 varieties. This sounds absolutely amazing and definitely the area grows tulips in abundance.

Don’t count every tulip you see there to judge the accuracy of the information I have shared; it would be nothing but a hard work and you end up your journey like a fool.

Every year, new varieties of tulips are produced here, please spot the loveliest ones that you never knew before!

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This one of my favorite tulip varieties. Do you know this variety tulip? Photo Credit: gtknj at Flickr.

What is the best area inside the theme park to view countless tulips?

There are three distinct tulip viewing spots, they are as follows: 1) Flower Road (road of flowers and windmills), 2) Amsterdam Square and 3) The Huis Ten Bosch (HTB) Palace.

The flower road spot is what you really expect to see from a tulip garden. It has windmills that amazingly looks beautiful with tons of tulips.

At Amsterdam Square or so called Tulip Square, one can imagine how wonderful it could be sitting on a chair, drinking a cup of coffee and viewing colored tulips around. You can see the great Mt. Fuji there – not the real one though, it is 4m high and made of tulips.

The Huis Ten Bosch Palace is actually the landmark you must visit where a lot of tulips of different varieties shine the whole palace grounds.

Evening and night atmospheres during the festival time would make you crazy to stay all the night. It can’t be as it shut down exactly at 22:00. Though, the time you get there is enough to enjoy your special evening gazing at the tulip gardens illuminated with thousands lights.

This is the mind blowing feature which we all miss at Tonami Tulip Fair and Kamiyubetsu Tulip Festival. I was pretty excited to get into this tulip festival and what I explored there was quite appealing to me and I would never ever forget the river cruise experience through the canals. That is something you must experience.

What to buy and eat?

An impressive view of Huis ten Bosch tulip garden. Photo Credit: Stacy Hadiwidjaja at Flickr.

Whenever we make a plan to visit some extraordinary places around the world, we must keep in mind that we should taste the local specialty of those places. A wide range of European dishes with drinks can be enjoyed here in this magical theme park.

The must buy things are tulip bulbs, tulip boutique, tulip themed cute souvenirs from the shops and of course the Dutch clogs. In fact, you will find so many small cute souvenirs that your mind would tell you buy everything you discover there.

Don’t worry if you run out of cash money because there are some ATM booths inside the theme park and they accept international credit/debit cards. If you have no idea how to use credit card/debit card in japan then read this.

How to Get there and Where to Stay?

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Huis Ten Bosch Express! Photo Credit: Joel at Flickr.

If you are coming from a far distance like Tokyo, Osaka, Sendai or Hokkaido then the best way to get there easily by domestic flight to Nagasaki Airport. From the airport, you can either take a bus or boat that directly takes you to Huis Ten Bosch taking approximately 50 minutes.

You can reach there by the Rapid train called JR Seaside Liner on Omura Line which connects JR Nagasaki station and Huis Ten Bosch station. It will cost you 1470 yen and take about 75 minutes.

You better stay a night there as I assume you don’t want to miss the other things that I have not explained here. Find yourself visiting its official website. There are several Hotels located inside and outside the theme park area.

I stayed a night at Hotel Nikko Huid Ten Bosch. The service was very excellent and bear in mind that pets are not allowed here. Check out the follow hotels:

Huis Ten Bosch Forest Villa
Huis Ten Bosch Hotel Amsterdam
Watermark Hotel Nagasaki Huis Ten Bosch
Huis Ten Bosch Hotel Europe

Important Things to Know

Venue: Huis Ten Bosch (HTB)
Period: Early February to April, 2024
Address: 1-1 Huis Ten Bosch Machi, Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture 859-3292 Japan
Phone: 81-570-064-110
Open: 09:00 to 22:00 daily.
Official Website: https://english.huistenbosch.co.jp/
Parking Lot: Yes
ATM: Yes

A flower kingdom like this should be in your Japan travel bucket list. It does not matter how you enjoy your time there, but make sure you enjoy the picturesque tulips gardens of His Ten Bosch.

Let’s explore Japanese beautiful spring and admire the flowers that bloom in spring.

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