Zundert, a small town in the Netherlands located at the Belgian border, hosts the world’s biggest flower parade, featuring twenty floats of twenty meters long and ten meters high. Flower parades are a tradition held in a variety of places all over the world, but the tradition is especially popular in The Netherlands, a country famous for its flowers. There are more than 25 flower parades, big and small, spread over the country.
In Zundert, the flower parade is a social event. Each and every person in Zundert, young and old, is involved in some way or other in construction of the floats and the keeping of the flower fields. The older members are often responsible for planting and growing the dahlias, while the younger people are responsible for designing the floats, building the scale models and overseeing the construction, the details, the coloring and all other aspects of creating the huge floats.
Huge floats are made of wire, cardboard and papier-mâché and entirely covered in dahlias in intricate designs. The dahlias for grown specifically for the parade, and thousands of them are required just to cover one float.
Twenty gigantic flower sculptures took over the town on Sunday, September 7, mesmerizing thousands of spectators, young and old.
