Category: Discover the Netherlands

Amsterdam, city guide, 3-4 days The canal ring is Amsterdam’s postcard, and it earns the attention — gabled houses leaning companionably over the water, houseboats, bicycles stacked three deep against every railing. It’s also, by mid-morning, one of the most crowded few square kilometres in Europe. The city visitors actually fall in love with tends…

Bollenstreek (Bulb Region), late March to mid-May, day trip or 2 days, self-drive or cycle from Amsterdam/Leiden Keukenhof garden itself — seven million bulbs planted in a single 32-hectare park, open only about eight weeks a year — is worth the crowds it draws. But it’s a curated, ticketed display, and treating it as the…

Giethoorn, Overijssel, day trip or overnight, 1.5 hours from Amsterdam Amsterdam has canals; Giethoorn, a small village in the northeastern province of Overijssel, has almost nothing but canals — thatched farmhouses connected by footbridges and water instead of roads, with punting boats (whisper boats, so called for their near-silent electric motors) as the standard way…