Tourism is a significant portion of Holland Michigan’s economy, driven largely their beautiful abundance of tulips and their crown jewel, Tulip Time. The festival began in 1929, with 250,000 tulips planted specifically for the event. Through the years this has only grown, with six million tulips planted, and ready to burst forth in color in early spring. These tulips are spread throughout the city, in parks and gracing the sides of streets. Beginning 85 years ago as just a tulip festival, Tulip Time has grown to be so much more, with it now a much broader time of festivity, and celebration of Dutch culture. Each day during the festival, traditional Dutch dances are performed throughout the city by nearly a thousand costumed locals, with shows lasting 5–15 minutes.

There are a number of great events and attractions throughout the festival, including multiple parades, a carnival, art and craft fairs, quilt shows, Tulip City tours, and even a town crier competition! Click here for a full calendar of events, and here for more special attractions. More information about the festival can be found at the official website: TulipTime.com

The festival only happens for about a week at the beginning of may, but Holland is a great town to visit no matter what time of year it is. Spring is certainly a great time to enjoy new life, and the tulips everywhere, but the other seasons offer just as much of a reason for you to visit. In the summer you can enjoy the beaches, sail on lake Michigan, golf, go biking, or camp. Autumn is a great time to visit the farmer’s market, listen to live music, or visit a museum. During the winter months you can get some great exercise cross-country skiing, ice skate, or stay indoors and see a show, or go bowling—and don’t forget to drink some nice hot coffee or hot chocolate at a local restaurant. Whenever you choose to go, you mustn’t miss the uniquely Dutch experiences, including the production of wooden shoes! Whatever it is you want to do, you’ve got hundreds of things to choose from in Holland Michigan.

Shopping and dining in Holland are excellent, with dozens of unique shops, art galleries, antique stores, and more, not to mention the mouth-watering dishes at the local cafés, grills, fine restaurants, and ice cream shops.

Four miles to the west of Holland Michigan is the Holland State Park, which has great campsites, picnicking areas, sandy beaches, and excellent access to the water, for boating, fishing, and swimming.

For more information about the town of Holland, visit the town’s official website at Holland.org

The Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, commissioned Leonardo to create the world’s largest equestrian statue in 1482. It was to be called only Il Cavallo, a monument to the Duke’s father. Over the course of the next 17 years Leonardo drew sketches of the horse, constructed a 24-foot clay model, and amassed several tons of bronze in preparation for the final casting. But then politics got in the way of art–faced with a French invasion, the Duke confiscated the bronze to cast cannons. Even so, his firepower proved insufficient. The French, victorious, invaded Milan. Bored French crossbowmen used Leonardo’s model as target practice until the clay horse fell to pieces. Leonardo never attempted to remake his mighty horse. His notebooks containing the sketches were lost and Il Cavallo faded into legend.

But in 1966, several of Leonardo’s lost notebooks were discovered in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, while others fell into the hands of the British royal family. A decade later, National Geographic Magazine ran a story on the unrealized sculpture, entitled “The Horse that Never Was.” Retired airline pilot and art collector Charles Dent read the article and was immediately enthralled. He devoted the rest of his life to the creation of a tribute sculpture fashioned after Leonardo’s original ideas, founding a corporation for fundraising and building a life-sized clay model of the eventual horse. Dent’s death in 1994 did not put an end to his vision. A full-height version was cast, but structural problems necessitated that the horse be resculpted.

Thanks to additional funding by billionaire retail-chain founder Frederik Meijer, Nina Akamu was hired, first to improve the original horse and then to begin it again from scratch, combining Leonardo’s drawings with the study of equine anatomy. Two 24-foot horses were cast. The first was unveiled in Milan on September 10, 1999, exactly 500 years after the destruction of Leonardo’s original. The second found its home in Grand Rapids. Smaller versions were placed in the Pennsylvania hometown of Charles Dent and the Italian city of Vinci, Leonardo’s eponymous birthplace. An eight-foot version entitled Homage to Leonardo is located in the Meijer Gardens as well, in addition to a tiny replica meant to be handled by blind visitors unable to take in the grandeur of the three-storey original.