3 Best Sights in Day Trips from Amsterdam, Netherlands

This famed 79-acre park and greenhouse complex is one of the largest open-air flower exhibitions in the world, and draws huge crowds during the eight weeks it's open (late March–mid-May). Founded in 1950 by Tom van Waveren and other leading bulb growers, its hothouses and lakeside flower beds see as many as 7 million tulip bulbs bloom every spring. In the last weeks of April (peak season) you can catch tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, and narcissi all flowering simultaneously. There are also blooms on show in the pavilions along with floral demonstrations and exhibitions about the history of tulips. Leading Dutch bulb-growing exporters use it as a showcase for their latest hybrids, which does mean that commercial—not creative—forces are at play here.

Some of the planting is of the rather gaudy tulip varieties, and there's no holding back on the bulb-buying opportunities. It's lovely—if squashed at times—to wander around meandering streams, placid pools, and paved paths. The avenues were designed by Zocher, of Amsterdam's Vondelpark fame. Keukenhof's roots reach back to the 15th century, when it was the herb farm (Keukenhof means "kitchen courtyard") of one of Holland's richest ladies. Any sense of history has almost been obliterated, although there is a historical garden re-creating the oldest botanical garden in the Netherlands in Leiden and at least a nod to contemporary trends in the "Inspiration" section. Head for the windmill for some calm and a vista over the surrounding fields, or view the crowds from a distance with an hour-long boat tour (book this near the windmill, €9). This is the Netherlands' most popular springtime attraction, and it's easy to reach from all points of the country. Traveling independently rather than in an organized group should present no problem—just follow the crowds, but you can buy a ticket that includes bus transportation.

Tickets are €1.50 cheaper if booked online in advance.

The sight of Kinderdijk's 19 windmills under sail is magnificently and romantically impressive. Not surprisingly, this landmark sight (on the UNESCO World Heritage list) is one of the most visited places in the Netherlands. These are water-pumping mills whose job was to drain water from the Alblasserwaard polder enclosed by the Noord and Lek rivers—a function now performed by the 1950 pumping station with its humongous water screws, which you pass on the way to the site. The somewhat chocolate-boxy name (which means "children's dyke") comes from a legend involving a baby in a cradle who washed up here after the great floods of 1421, with a cat sitting on its tummy to keep them both from tumbling out.

Rarer than ever, these windmills date all the way back to 1740. Just 150 years ago, 10,000 windmills were in operation across the country, but today only 1,000 remain. These have been saved from the wrecking ball thanks to the help of heritage organizations. The windmills are open in rotation, so there is always one interior to visit. A walk through a working windmill gives fascinating insight into how the millers and their families lived. The mills can be seen in full action (wind permitting) on Saturday 1–5 pm in July and August, as well as on National Windmill Day (second Saturday and Sunday of May), and National Monument Day (second weekend of September). Throughout the first week following the first Monday of September, the mills are illuminated at night. You can walk around the mill area whenever you like, so it's a great way to spend a leisurely afternoon. There are a couple of cafés for snacks, but if the weather is good bring a picnic.

Many connoisseurs rank this as the third most important museum of art in the Netherlands, after the Rijksmuseum and the Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Opened in 1938, it is the repository of a remarkable private collection of late-19th-century and early-20th-century paintings, the nucleus of which are 91 paintings and 175 works on paper by Van Gogh (about 50 of which rotate on display at any given time) that, when combined with the collection in the Amsterdam museum, constitutes nearly four-fifths of his entire oeuvre. Hélène Kröller, née Müller, had a remarkable eye as well as a sixth sense about which painters created art for the ages and through her family firm, run by her husband, the means to bankroll it. For Vincent, fame came too late; for the Kröller-Müllers, however, their great Van Gogh holdings helped make this museum world famous.

But Hélène Kröller-Müller was not myopic in her appreciation and perception. She augmented her collection of Van Goghs with works by Georges Seurat, Pable Picasso, Odile Redon, Georges Braque, and Piet Mondrian. The museum also contains 16th- and 17th-century Dutch paintings, ceramics, Chinese and Japanese porcelains, and contemporary sculpture. The building itself, designed by Henry Van de Velde, artfully brings nature into the galleries through its broad windows, glass walkways, and patios. The gardens and woods around the museum form a stunning open-air gallery, the largest in Europe with a collection of 20th-century sculptures that include works by Auguste Rodin, Richard Serra, Barbara Hepworth, Alberto Giacometti, and Jean Dubuffet. There is a gift shop and self-service restaurant on-site.