Aalsmeer Flower Auction, Holland | European Waterways
Aalsmeer Flower Auction, Holland - During our cruise in Holland we enjoy an optional early morning tour to Aalsmeer flower auction, where some 17 million cut flowers from all over the world are traded each day. Flower Auction) is held 5 days a week from early to midmorning. The largest flower auction in the world, with an annual turnover of more than $200 million, it has 3 continuously operating auction halls in a building the size of several football fields. You walk on a catwalk above the rolling four-tier carts that wait to move on tracks past the auctioneers. The buying system is what is called a Dutch auction - the price goes down, not up, on a large "clock" on the wall. The buyers sit lecture-style with buzzers on their desks; the first to register a bid gets the bunch.