My husband has a conference in Ede, Netherlands in July 2009. Does anyone know anything about this city? Can you recommend any short trips out of the city by train?
Also, any suggestions for good restaurants, sightseeing, etc. in or near Ede? (We will be going into Amsterdam one day as part of the conference.)

We will fly into either Amsterdam, Brussels or Frankfurt and then travel on to Ede by train.

Thanks for your help!

The Netherlands is a very small country. You can pretty much get anywhere in the country in a short amount of time. Amsterdam is the most obvious answer, but I really enjoy Delft and Utrecht! Good luck!

Utrecht is close to Ede, as are Arnhem and Apeldoorn.
Ede has some lovely heathland and woodland around it, as it is in the middle of the Veluwe. I am not that familiar with the town itself, just with the edges of it, and the heathland.
An obvious trip to make would be to the Hoge Veluwe National Park, and the Kroller Muller museum.
Apeldoorn has Paleis het Loo, a former Royal palace, with lovely gardens which will be worth visiting in July.
Utrecht is an interesting city once you get out of the station/shopping mall area. It has several good and interesting museums. If you like architecture consider the Rietveld Schröder house. You need to get tickets for it via the Centraal museum in Utrecht.
Arnhem also has a good open air museum.
There is a vineyard in Otterlo: www.wijnhoevedeveluwe.nl/

It is also close to important WW2 sites, connected with Operation Market Garden.


www.theveluwe.com/ will give you a few ideas about the area. Sadly the tourist informatuion website for Ede is only in Dutch and German.

This is great information! Thanks so much for sharing. We will look forward to visiting the places you have outlined.

I am having problems finding out much about this area particularly in English. We will have some afternoons free and want to see as much as possible.

I took a bus from the Ede-Weninger (sp?) train station to the fantastic Kroller-Muller museum Hetismij mentions - supposedly it has more Van Goghs than even the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and also an outdoor statue park with many famous sculptors represented.

If you have a car you can park at the entrance to Hooge Veluwe park - a vast expanse of sandy land and forests and hop on the free bikes at the entrance and ride the six or so miles to the museum. Not sure you can drive to the museum - just don't know.

Ede itself is a not so excititing Dutch provincial town with around 70.000 inhabitants. But it is big enough to have a decent amount of shops and restaurants etc. Don't know Ede well enough to give restaurant tips.

But as already said; the outlying area is pretty beeautiful (The Veluwe)and from Ede you can get very easy to other parts of the country. Arnhem/Nijmegen are nice towns (somewhat bigger than Ede). Plus also Utrecht is very easy to reach.

Kroller-Moller is great.

Ede has two stations: Ede-centrum, this is in the center of the city and is on a small line from Amersfoort to Ede-Wageningen. Ede-Wageningen is the larger station, a little bit on the outskirts of the town. This station is on the Intercity-line from Arnhem towards Utrecht and Amsterdam I believe.