Black Tulip Museum

The Black Tulip Museum, Museum De Zwarte Tulp, is a small museum in Lisse, in the Dutch bulb-growing region known as the Bollenstreek, close to the Keukenhof gardens. It tells the story of the tulip and of the flower-bulb industry, which has been one of the country's signature trades for around four hundred years. A visit is a good way to understand the fields of colour that attract so many people to this corner of South Holland each spring.

The tulip is not native to the Netherlands. It came from Central Asia and the Ottoman Empire, and the first bulbs reached Western Europe in the sixteenth century. A botanist named Carolus Clusius planted them at the university garden in Leiden, and the flower soon became a luxury fashion. In the 1630s it was at the centre of the episode known as tulipmania, when prices for rare bulbs rose to extreme levels before collapsing in early 1637. The story has been told and retold, and historians now debate how widespread the crash really was, but it remains a classic example of a speculative bubble.

The museum takes visitors through this history and then into the practicalities of growing and selling bulbs. Displays show the different types of tulips, how bulbs are planted and harvested, the tools used and the way the industry developed into an export business. Old posters, packaging and catalogues illustrate how the flowers were marketed. The idea of a black tulip, a dark purple variety, ties the museum to a nineteenth-century novel by Alexandre Dumas, which describes a competition to breed such a flower.

Lisse is the centre of the Bollenstreek, and the museum is a short walk from Keukenhof, the garden that is open for a few weeks each spring. Surrounding the town are fields of tulips, hyacinths and daffodils, which bloom in sequence from March to May, and cycling routes lead past them. Early spring brings crocuses and daffodils, followed by hyacinths and then tulips at their peak in mid-April.

The museum suits families, garden lovers and visitors who want context for the fields. It is small, so an hour is enough, and it can be combined with Keukenhof or a bike ride. Check opening times, since they vary with the season. Inside, the former bulb shed gives a good sense of how bulbs were sorted and packed.