Lisse lies in the Duin- en Bollenstreek, the strip of sandy soil behind the dunes between Leiden and Haarlem that has grown flower bulbs since the 17th century. The village is first recorded in 1198, and the Keukenhof estate on its northern edge takes its name from the Keukenduin, dune ground that belonged to Slot Teylingen and whose game, livestock, herbs and berries were destined for the kitchen of that castle, where Jacoba van Beieren, Countess of Holland, lived in the 15th century. The ruin of Teylingen’s 13th-century round keep survives a few kilometres south at Voorhout.
Kasteel Keukenhof itself is not medieval. It was built in 1642 as a classicist country house for Adriaen Maertensz Block, a former commander of the Dutch East India Company in the Moluccas, and was enlarged in neo-Gothic style in 1861–1863 for the Van Pallandt family to designs by Elie Saraber. The English landscape park around it was laid out by the Zocher family of landscape architects, who also designed Amsterdam’s Vondelpark. The last private owner left the estate to the Stichting Kasteel Keukenhof on his death in 2003; the world-famous Keukenhof bulb garden on the neighbouring part of the estate is a separate attraction open from late March to mid-May.
For festival-goers the point is the park: mature trees, lawns and ponds around the castle, which Castlefest fills for four days at the turn of July and August. Lisse has no railway station; the nearest are Leiden Centraal, Haarlem and Hillegom, with buses covering the last stretch.