Road trip USA (Midwest): Tulip Festival in Holland

After two eventful days in Chicago, we are now starting our road trip through the American Midwest. Our first destination for the day was the city of Cadillac in the state of Michigan. On the way we visited the largest tulip festival in Holland. You can find out what else we looked at in the following article.

After a hearty breakfast at the Hilton Chicago (our hotel rating) we packed our bags, got the car out of the parking garage and stowed everything in the trunk. We left Chicago on Interstate-94 heading east. The partially six-lane motorway was quite full at this time of day. Although I have always set the cruise control on our rental car 5 mph (approx. 8 km/h) higher than permitted, we were overtaken on the left and right by cars and trucks. Being surrounded by two big trucks is not a very comfortable feeling!

Tulip Festival in Holland

After a short stop at the Michigan Welcome Center on Interstate-94, we drove on to our first destination for the day: Holland. Holland? Yes, we were still in the USA - in the state of Michigan to be precise. The small town of Holland was founded in 1847 by European settlers from the Netherlands. This European influence was present in various parts of the city. So there was z. B. a restaurant Alpenrose and shops with German-speaking names.

The day before we arrived in Holland was the annual Tulip Festival. This has been celebrated every year in May since 1929. Back then, 250,000 tulips were planted, today there are already 6 million growing across the city. Flower lovers can admire the flower beds along the streets, city parks and in front of public buildings for free.

We parked our rental car on a side street off Centennial Park. The variety of different tulips was amazing and everything bloomed in a wide variety of colors. Unique! Then we walked two blocks to the main shopping street. We couldn't walk past a fudge store and bought a piece of salted caramel fudge. Really tasty and typical of the Midwest.

Windmill Island Gardens

Strengthened we drove to the Windmill Island Gardens. Here was actually a typical windmill, as it could have been in a Dutch village. However, adults pay USD 10 to see them up close. We saved the money and only looked once from a distance. For us Western Europeans, windmills are nothing special.

After an hour and a half drive north on US-131 we arrived in Cadillac. We had chosen this small town as our destination for the day. After checking in at the Hampton Inn Cadillac, we got two more pizzas from Domino's. Here we had totally misjudged the ordered size, so that unfortunately a lot was left over.

Roadtrip USA (Midwest) - route details

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