Dahlias...

I'm so excited to share these photos. My husband fell in love with these flowers on our European tour in 2002. That may sound a little ostentatious; we were really just kids bumming around with backpacks. We made no plans and drifted through France, Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Our last stop was in Amsterdam, we had just gotten engaged in Interlaken, Switzerland (a story for another day), and we were giddy with love. We wandered around the city reveling in the canals and the liberal mindset of the city. One morning we got up looking for something to get us out of town and the front desk recommended Floriade. Floriade is an international flower festival. Its held every 10 years and just takes up acres and acres of land with beautiful gardens, there were interactive gardens, cultural gardens, statue gardens and many others. But there were also two or three acres of dahlias. They were amazing. They come in a huge range of colors and shapes.

Friday afternoon, on the advice of Heidi at 101 Cookbooks, we went to Golden Gate Park to see their dahlia display. Its just off to the right of the Conservatory of Flowers.

Our favorite was this crazy flower. H thinks it looks like a Dr. Seuss tree:

S had a great time too, though he seemed a little disappointed that we couldn't go inside the fence.