The thing with the endless fields of tulips and the pretty windmill in the background, all set against a bright blue sky of course: I think the Dutch invented that at some point. The tulip fields were finite when we visited, the windmill was somewhere else and had no wings at all. And the sky? Mostly Dutch gray instead of Prussian blue.
Our travel guide had promised a road through the fields, with nothing but tulip fields to the left and right. On the left, however, there were mostly houses, sometimes even nice ones. There were also houses on the right, and only now and again did we see a hint of a tulip field. But flowers my ass! Here - outside of touristy places like Keukenhof, which charges a decent entrance fee - they don't do tourism at all, but horticulture and agriculture. And the flowers of the tulips are cut off to improve bulb propagation. In other words, many fields are green.
This is the way it is in North and South Holland, unless you happen to be there in the week or two when the postcard photographers set up their kit walking mill with a huge blue background cloth in the landscape to take their photos.
