Corso Zundert parade honours Van Gogh with beautiful floats using up to a million flowers

(MALOU EVERS)

Each year the 'Bloemencorso Zundert' parade celebrates its status as a global supplier of dahlia flowers.

Zundert, a municipality and town situated in the south of the Netherlands gives a staggering 33 hectares (81 acres) of space to 600,000 dahlia bulbs in fifty different species. 

This year Corso Zundert took inspiration from the work of Vincent Van Gogh, who was born there 162 years ago. While the festival does not usually feature a specific theme, exceptions are made for the town's most famous son.

Some of the floats featured Van Gogh’s face, in a similar style to one of his self-portraits. Others replicate his most famous works of art, while others have clearly been inspired by his use of vivid colour.

While the first Corso Zundert parades were modest in size, featuring horse-drawn carts or bicycles covered in flowers, the event has grown dramatically. Twenty hamlets participate, and hundreds of people from each one volunteer to put the floats together.

© MALOU EVERS Each village works hard to outdo its competitors, with designs becoming more and more ambitious every year, with a single float containing up to half a million flowers.

© MALOU EVERS © WERNER PELLIS © MALOU EVERS © MALOU EVERS © WERNER PELLIS © WERNER PELLIS © WERNER PELLIS