A full week in The Netherlands
 

We will be traveling to The Netherlands in mid September next year and will have a week there before moving on. What part of this country would we regret not seeing? It doesn't have to be a big city. We'd prefer to stay in the country.

Will you have a car or are you planning to travel by train?

What sort of things interest you the most?

Answering these two questions would help us help you with suggestions.I am not particularly a city girl, but Amsterdam is my favorite European city after London. I visit the Anne Frank House every time I am in the Netherlands. I have enjoyed the treasures of the ReichsMuseum. I love the flower market, walking along the canals, the hidden church in the attic, the peace of the beguinage (sp?) and much more.

The network of railways in the Netherlands is excellent so Amsterdam is a good center for taking the train for day trips elsewhere.

Haarlem--Corrie ten Boom house, Franz Hals museum, lots of neat little alleys for strolling, the market square.

Zanfort am Zee is a short trip to the seaside.

The Hague with the seat of government, museums and flower filled streets. The miniature city of Mauduradam is nearby.

Delft, Hoorn, Leiden, Zutphen are interesting cities. Gouda and Aalkmar have interesting cheese markets.

Visiting the tide control dikes is interesting. I had a car when I went there so I am not sure how easy public transportation. I enjoyed a trip to Texcel island for walking and quiet.

Kinderdijk has lots of working windmills. Zanse Schans also has some working windmills.

Hetismij is a resident of the Netherlands and is generous with advice and help. It is the middle of the night there now, but I am sure that sometime tomorrow she will chime in and offer suggestions. Please think about your own interests and let us know what you have considered so far.

we were in Amsterdam for a week several years ago. One day we took a day trip to Hoorn, nice short ride on the train, stroll around town, lunch, leisurely walk back to the train for late-afternoon return.

We enjoyed it, and I would imagine there are many towns like that you could visit.

Thanks to both of you for responding. Yes, we will have a car. We've always based ourselves in a town convenient for taking day trips to other cities just to see what they have to offer. Since we're going to be in the Netherlands for a full week, we could split time between two areas of the country. Love being by the ocean or the sea. We’ve seen enough churches to last a lifetime. Like to walk the streets and window shop, visit museums. You mentioned cheese, we LOVE cheese. We will be going to Bruges when in Belgium.

<i>jessicadog1 on Dec 9, 13 at 4:55pm
Yes, we will have a car. We've always based ourselves in a town convenient for taking day trips to other cities just to see what they have to offer. Love being by the ocean or the sea.</i>

Driving in Dutch cities is something you probably do not want to do much of. Zandvoort is a small beach town though it is not particularly convenient to much, except Haarlem and that is a jewel. The Hague is on the coast and has plenty of the other things you seek. Leiden is not on the coast but is kind of in the middle of a lot, and not far from the sea. September weather can be windy and wet in Holland, and it changes fast.

Holland has many good cheeses, though not as wide a variety as in France. In cheese shops (mostly gone these days, unfortunately) or at the cheese counter in an Albert Hein you can taste before you buy. If you see a "vis" wagon stop and have a "haring" with the locals. That is a raw herring. Delicious. There is a really good fish wagon at the Boter Markt in Haarlem, near the V+D department store.

We loved our visit to http://www.paleishetloo.nl/en/ as well as
http://www.hogeveluwe.nl/en/14. The city of http://www.holland.com/global/touris...eldoorn-11.htm made for a fine base.

You might want to consider basing yourself in Utrecht: it's roughly at the center of the Netherlands. It's more medieval in many ways than is Amsterdam. It's also a major railway hub, so train connections to anywhere, the surrounding area (Utrechtse Heuvelrug) is beautiful and you're half an hour from Amsterdam, The Hague, Leiden, Rotterdam, an hour from Arnhem and about an hour from Den Bosch. All great cities.

Utrecht is also near Loosdrecht, a lake area for (rather genteel) boating, likewise river Vecht.

Also quite doable from Utrecht is the Kröller Müller Museum in Otterloo, which could be combined with a visit to Arnhem.

An area I consider to be exceptionally beautiful is the row of Hanseatic cities on river IJssel (Deventer, Zutphen, Zwolle).

And perhaps some "whisper boating" in the Weerribben area (a hetismij favorite, as I recall)

The seaside isn't really very interesting over here, but one favor you could do yourself is to visit Panorama Mesdag in The Hague: the sea as you've never seen it before.

With a car I'll add my usual advice of heading over the Afsluitdijk to Friesland, visiting some of the towns and villages there, such as Harlingen and Franeker (which has a fascinating old wooden planetarium), Hindeloopen and Makkum.

Then maybe continue down around the Ijsselmeer, visiting places like Blokzijl, the Weeribben, Urk, Schokland, followed by Zwolle or Deventer or Kampen and Apeldoorn, the Veluwe, and down to the big rivers.

Excuse me jessicadog while I jump in on your thread to ask:

Is public transit to Maeslantkering, otherwise known as Het Keringhuis, Publiekscentrum Water, over at the Hook of Holland, really as bad as it seems? The website for it suggests taking the Sprinter as far as Hoek van Holland Haven, and then renting a bike or hiring a cab to take one the last 9 km or so to the centre.

Problem: My experience is that cabs are never around when you want them, we won't have a phone with us, and what I've found on Google street view appears to be a bike store - which may or may not have three bikes to rent when we need them. At worst, we could hike it from HVH Haven to the flood barrier but it's easily a 1.5 to 2 hours round trip walk, not something I'd really want to do in the rain (and it might. Rain, that is.)

I'm about to give up, any ideas?

there is really no 'country' is a country whose population density equals India - the joy of The Netherlands to me are its neat cities - check out Delft, Leiden, Haarlem, etc or be bored in the urbanized countryside.

Sue, you can now take the fast ferry almost to the maeslantkering and this is an interesting trip in its own right. there used to be a stop there, but it's been scrapped. you can now get as far as landtong and then walk.

http://www.ret.nl/en/travel-with-ret...ast-ferry.html

No country in the Netherlands? Define country Pal. I'd love to know.

Yeah, I disagree too, but then I'm a son of the North: all country, with sparse cities, and the glorious Islands as a bonus.

Well I mean no miles of country like we have here in northern Michigan - miles and miles of farms and trees and an occasional town - dirt roads but in The Netherlands it always seems there is some housing flat or town in the near distance - I do not get the feel of what I construe to be 'country' but

then I think of Kroller-Muller and the dunes and those I guess are wild-looking sparsely populated areas.

And yes the northern part - I had led bike tours through southern and eastern Holland for years and yes there is a lot of farms, etc but just not to me country - but the northern part I have only taken a trains trhough and yes it may be much more of a countryside so I take that back - the Holland I am familiar with I'd say is not very countrified - ditto for most of Belgium outside the Ardennes.

and even though the northeastern part is real country I think the average first-time traveler to The Netherlands would find very little of interest there at least as opposed to cities like Amsterdam, Delft, Leiden, Haarlem, Utrecht, Alkmaar, etc.

I would recommend leaving the Dutch countryside for subsequent trips or unless of course you have a special interest like bird watching, horticultural interests, etc.

I guess what I'm saying is that the 'Dutch countryisde' may not be that romantic to the average American thinking of our type of countryside.

But this is not to say the Dutch countryside can't be captivating - on our bike trips we took over 1,000 folks pedaling thru the Dutch countryside and everyone or most said they loved it - in fact after 3 days in Amsterdam folks were longing to get on the bike paths again and stay in smaller towns like Bilthoven, Rijnsburg, Heumen Bos, DeWeerd, etc.

I think the best thing for the average tourists to do in the Dutch countryside is to take a bike ride or even hike through the flower fields between Haarlem and Lisse - where lots of blooms blossom all summer and into fall and early spring - a sea often of undulated pulchritudinous blooms - with smaller farms and flower producers dotting the landscape and the occasional old wooden white humpbacked drawbriiges, etc.

One great way for the average tourist to do this is to rent a bike in Amsterdam - lots of options there - and buy a Fiets Ticket (bicycle ticket) that allows them to put their bikes on most trains (in specially marked bike storage areas) for the whole day - take the train to Haarlem

then walk your bike thru the town center (or ride around it on bike paths) to the VVV or Tourist Information Office on the southern end of the main pedestrian shopping street and pick up details maps and advice to pedal thru the petals to the Keunkenhof (open usually only parts of April and May) to Lisse and onto Leiden, a fine old college town with about the most old canals of any city I've seen outside of Amsterdam) and put the bike and you back on a train to Amsterdam.

This will take you through the heart of one of the major flower fields of Holland. Now that kind of countryside I think is a great experience not duplicated many places.

Oh, Menachem, that is great, thank you! And I see the fast ferry also takes bikes free of charge, which opens up other possibilities. Thanks!

Pal, if you haven't been you are not able to comment on the north of the country. It is exactly to get away from the dreaded tourist triangle, and to show people more of the Netherlands than the built up Randstad.
Head south too. Plenty of country to be seen. Obviously a country with a high population density cannot compare to vast expanses of nothingness in Michigan.

Well hetimsmij I have seen the north, not by bike but driving through it and taking trains to Markum, Leewarden and Groninegen (spellings on either) and Maastricht (saw the chair-lift!) near (heerlen sp?).

Yes it is more like country but what would the average first-time tourist to Holland want to do there? Things they could not do at home?

Let me re-phrase my point of view about Holland having no countryside - I do not want to offend and should have used other terms. Holland is surprisingly rural with its population density one of the highest in the world - they have ingeniously re-created nature even in cities - cows sometimes munch right up to huge flats but it just seems there is nothing really wild - every inch manipulated by canals, sluitjes, etc

So my concept of wilderness should not have been confused with that of countryside - of course Holland has rural areas but not much wilderness is what I should have said and everything seems do managed - fields exactly square or rectangular with wind blocks for trees, etc seemingly the same everywhere.

All well I love Holland, the Dutch and just about everything about it so do not want to come across negatively at all.

Tot Ziens for now!

Yes, The Netherlands have been lovingly designed, for centuries. Landscapes like the handle of an old and well used tool that's acquired a beautiful patina from years and years of use.

What is the dreaded tourist triange?