Secret oases of merchants.

Hidden behind walls of Paradise: The Gardens of the noble city of Amsterdam Villas are usually inaccessible to tourists. Only for a few days in June, the most beautiful gardens open their doors - and surprise even the locals with stern baroque art.

 

Amsterdam - All is quiet in the garden of Jan LM Meulendijks. Twitter tits, a fountain splashes there, behind the magnificent city palace from the 17th Century on the noble Herengracht in Amsterdam. In the gardens are in bloom from March until the October. "Some people said that this was one of the most beautiful gardens on the Herengracht," says the retired Meulendijks. Once a year the house will open the doors to its green oasis.

In the Open Tuinen Dagen, 19 to 21 June 2009 - the days of the open gardens - Shares Jan LM Meulendijks the joy hidden in his city green with guests from near and far. More than 30 gardens will be the visitors at the Open Tuinen Dagen get to see - private as well as the green gardens of some museums. Gardens in the strict Japanese style are among them, but also the colorful world of flowers actress Barbara Gozens. It is the garden of her house on the Keizersgracht near Amstelfluss this year for the first time.

Ancient trees between multi houses

"In recent years, I was even a few times as a visitor to the garden on weekends," says the actress. "I thought that was very fascinating, this surprising insights to receive." Surprisingly, and full of secrets - this makes the charm of the Open Tuinen Dagen from.

EVENT PLANNER

AP, REUTERS

Your leisure planners: parties, concerts, theater, stage and literature - of blogs, online event calendar for all of Germany ...

If you are a visitor to the Dutch capital on the Herengracht, Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht stroll past, the suspects between the high-rise buildings hardly cared for the garden green with centuries-old trees. No gate opens the view, not a curious passage gives only a small piece of dormant world behind the elegant villas and town houses priced Kontorhaus.

Houses and gardens date from the 17th Century, the Golden Age of the Netherlands. Then came many of the Amsterdam East India Trading Company to wealth. The boats of the nots merchants brought coffee, spices, porcelain and silk fabrics from Ceylon, India, China and Indonesia into the country.

"Dagen TUIN OPEN IN AMSTERDAM

Private gardens and temporary museum entrance gardens

The tours through the private gardens start at the Open Tuinen Dagen, 19 to 21 Each June at one of the four following addresses:

Bijbels Museum (Herengracht 366-368), Huis Marseille (Keizersgracht 401), Museum van Loon (Keizersgracht 672), the Museum Willet-Holthuysen (Herengracht 605).

At these places there is also information on the characteristics of individual gardens.

Tickets cost 15 euros and are valid for the gardens and the taxi boat.
The opening times are from 10 clock and 17 clock.
For wheelchairs and prams are the garden tours because of the many entrance stairs is not suitable, dogs are prohibited.

The gardens of the Museum van Loon, the museum Geelvinck Hinlopen Huis (both at the Keizersgracht), and the Willet-Holthuysen Museum (Herengracht) are for the visitors throughout the year.

  ->

Since 1996, there is the weekend of open gardens Amsterdam. Some owners participate in each year of the action, others in this June for the first time. Some rise times for one or two years, and then into the circle of the hosts back.

Garden art from the Baroque to the Modern

A good half a year, the Amsterdam garden designer Saskia Albrecht with the preparations for the weekend deal. She speaks the owner of the green oasis, it gets so much time on their gardener or caretaker contacts with new prospects. "That may be hard to believe as a stranger: But the inhabitants of the canal belt are well interconnected. Many of you might know personally of exhibitions and concerts," she says. "Every year we try some ten new gardens to present."

Friends of the garden art that is repeated on the green weekend travel to Amsterdam, can always hope for new discoveries. In the past year touched 7500 visitors through the hidden gardens, and were impressed by the works of art from the Baroque era, the Renaissance or even of modernity. The guests came from Germany, Belgium, Britain, France and Italy - and even from Japan and Finland.

Those who see all the open gardens, you should be good to walk. About ten kilometers long is the route along the canal ring that looks like a semicircle in the city center of Amsterdam surrounds. "The best we rented a bicycle. This is with us in Amsterdam anyway the movement's number one," says Saskia Albrechts. "If you do not grow on a bike might be a special taxi boat through the canals and channels to some of the gardens can go."