Stretching between Leyde and Haarlem, the best-known part of the Netherlands is renowned across the globe for its cultivation of bulbs, its colourful fields laid out like a checkerboard, and for the Keukenhof garden which is crowded with visitors in springtime. Cut into narrow multi-coloured strips separated by the canals, the plain resembles a giant mosaic. To experience this region to the full, explore its villages and flower estates as far as the dunes.