Art could not feign a simpler grace nor nature form a more beautiful line - James Montgomery, on tulips.

Do you too, every year, look forward to the explosion of colours of the tulips? I find them beautiful!

Nowadays we associate this flower with Holland, it actually originated in the Ottoman Empire, present-day Turkey. It was during the reign of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent that this flower achieved its greatest fame and thanks to the ambassador from Vienna it was exported to Austria, Holland and England. Its name comes from the Turkish 'tullband', which means turban. This flower is a symbol of love and lovesickness, as legend has it:

"In Persia lived a young man named Shirin who was madly in love with his beloved Ferhad. One day Shirin decided to leave in search of fortune but was swallowed up by the time that passed and inexorably marked days, months and years. The beautiful Ferhad suspended between sunrises and sunsets waited for her love but the hope of seeing him again soon left her alone. Seized by despair, in a last attempt to find him, she ventured into the desert and as she wandered she fell on stones sharp as the blades of war swords that cut her to death. It was then that Ferhad began to cry, aware that he would never see his Shirin again. The woman's tears as they fell mingled with the blood and drop by drop they penetrated the ground and turned into beautiful red flowers: tulips'.

This spring I was lucky enough to visit the Parco Giardino Sigurtà in Valeggio sul Mincio, in Italy. A 60-hectare park with wonderful walks in which I could get lost for hours! From March to the beginning of May, you can admire over a million tulips, in more than 300 varieties, accompanied by muscari, hyacinths and narcissus. In 2022, they were awarded the prize for the best tulip bloom in the world. Tulipanomania changes every year! My visit was characterised by a wet day, fortunately shortly after we entered, the rain started to taper off and then decided to take a break. So I was able to photograph the beautiful tulips with more ease (the umbrella is still an encumbrance ...).

A few days later I visited Tulipandia, in Grottamare. The first tulip park in the Marche. With 200,000 flowers in 100 varieties on one hectare of land, this park is certainly much smaller than the first, but still worth seeing! I found the offer that three free tulips are included in the entrance ticket very nice!

On both occasions I decided to photograph with my latest Lensbaby purchase: the Double Glass II lens, with a soft central focus surrounded by dramatic blur. I used it with the Composer Pro II, without the discs for special bokeh effects, at apertures f2.5, f2.8 or f4 and in a few shots with the macro lens. The result is photographs with significant blurring and bold colours, which reflect well my emotions at seeing these explosions of spring colours. Nature has awakened!

Below are the links to the parks, to get to know them better.