17th Holland Koi Show

Sat, 21 Aug - Known as the biggest Koi show in the world which was held at Kasteeltuin (Castle Gardens) in Arcen, Limburg province of the Netherlands. From 21-23 August, koi enthusiasts and dealers from all over the world exhibited their koi to a large public visiting the show. My Hubs and I were invited by my parents-in-law whom by the way, owned a very nice koi pond in their backyard.

All Koi lovers or people like us will flock to the venue to catch a glimpse of these beautiful prized kois.

The castle itself was nothing special as compared to many other castles but the span of area that makes up their famous beautiful gardens was something else. The castle was built in the 17th century in the Baroque period. When we got there, there was a long queue at the entrance so we decided to have an early lunch first. Lunch was kipsate (chicken with peanut butter sauce aka sate sauce in the Netherlands) with fries ;) After a full lunch, we went to check out the gardens of the castle which was divided into 5 different themes. Rosarium (rose garden), Watertuinen (man made rivers and canals with beautiful landscape), Wereldtuin (Italian garden, Eastern garden, bamboos garden among others) Lommerijk (literally means shadow area where beautiful plants were also can be seen there) and Casa Verde (Mediterranean and tropical plants and animals garden, over here they have a big green house where visitors can enjoy a stroll to see all the tropical plants and flowers). The garden areas were huge, it will take you hours to finish all!When we finally walked to the center of the koi show, there were over 140 stands with a great variety of offers focusing to the entire koi commerce. Mind you, it is a very lucrative business. An advanced filter can fetch up to EUR1k plus easily. We get to see all the manufacturers and dealers displaying their kois, advanced ponds equipment and filters, pond magazines, koi travels and koi paintings.

This year the organiser have included 3 new shows such as the Holland Bonsai Show, the Holland Aquarium Show and the Holland Shrimp Show. This show has a very friendly atmosphere, perfect for a family day outing. We definitely enjoyed ourselves very much.

Of course, the whole point of going to this show is to catch a glimpse of all these beautiful selected kois and of course to see the grand winners of the koi show.

Below are the grand winners....aren't they gorgeous~~they are big too!