Hotel breakfasts were included in the deal.

Getting there

Bike in back of car. Drive to Folkestone, le Shuttle to Calais, overnight in Calais (Holiday Inn, Coquelles), drive to start hotel in Doetinchem. The same in reverse for the return journey.

Day 1: 4 September

Route: Doetinchem to Nijmegen-Lent

Distance: 62km

Hotel: Van der Valk Hotel

Notes: Dull and damp when I set off, shortly turning to rain. Netherlands’ oldest windmill (15th century) in Zeddam; coffee at modern bakery at roundabout outside the town. Crossed seamless border into Germany just south of ‘s-Heerenberg, then crossed over Rhine bridge to follow elevated flood embankment. Rain stopped around 1pm. Continued along embankment, back into Netherlands, into Nijmegen, back over the river (here the Waal) to hotel.

The Netherlands’ oldest windmill, Zeddam

Bike, not far from Nijmegen

Day 2: 5 September

Route: Circular ride south-east of Nijmegen

Distance: 54km

Hotel: Van der Valk Hotel

Notes: Dry but dull at first. Visited National Cycle Museum in Nijmegen. Followed pleasant and varied route through woods, villages and open countryside. Sunny and warm by the time I reached Plasmolen, a water-based recreational centre at the furthest south of the day’s ride, where I had lunch. Passing through Beek late afternoon stopped to visit the Kabouterboom, the Dutch tree with the greatest girth. Temperature now 28°. Arrived hot in Nijmegen centre – stopped for beer before returning to hotel. Evening meal in Osteria Pomodoro opposite the hotel.

Cycle museum

Fietspad (cycle path) alongside disused railway

Kabouterboom

Waal bridge, Nijmegen

Day 3: 6 September

Route: Nijmegen-Lent to Zutphen

Distance: 53km

Hotel: Hampshire Hotel ‘s-Gravenhof

Notes: Another varied and interesting route heading North via Arnhem. Thunder forecast for later so used faster and slightly shorter F325 express cycle route to Arnhem and coffee. Stopped further on at Rozendaal Castle for photos. Route then climbed onto the heathland of the Veluwezoom National Park. Stopped near the far edge of the Park at Coldenhove (a recreational resort) for frites lunch. Funfair had taken over Zutphen town centre. Dinner at De Revolutie restaurant. Thunder didn’t materialise.

Sidenote: Approaching Arnhem through the suburbs with a small canal on my right and a modern housing development on my left I spotted these street names: Bob Marleystraat, Bill Haleystraat and Elvis Presleystraat. I asked a random dog-walker about them but he didn’t know why.

Coffee in Arnhem

Rozendaal Castle

Day 4: 7 September

Route: Circular ride north to Deventer and back

Distance: 43km

Hotel: Hampshire Hotel ‘s-Gravenhof

Notes: Another warm sunny day. In the morning I explored Zutphen centre on foot and visited the great church of St Walburga with its chained library of religious manuscripts and early printed books. Set off cycling at 1.30pm. Outward route on the western side of the Ijssel River, return route on the eastern side. Ice cream stop at Café De Kribbe. Visited working sawmill/windmill on outskirts of Zutphen; crossed river on foot-and-bike ferry. Reached village of Gorssel too late to visit the modern art museum MORE which specialises in modern realism. Dinner in hotel Brasserie.

Wind-driven sawmill, Zutphen

Ferry across the Ijssel, Deventer

Dutch landscape with calm water

Day 5: 8 September

Route: Zutphen to Doetinchem

Distance: 50km

Hotel: Villa Ruimzicht

Notes: My last day’s ride was another fine and warm day. It took me first east and then south back to my starting point in Doetinchem. Once again the route was varied and interesting, though today mostly through prosperous-looking farming countryside. I stopped in the small town of Vorden for coffee and applecake. My roadbook particularly mentioned Vorden Castle as being worth a visit and I’d seen a poster for it advertising a “British Weekend” on this day. It turned out to be a very big event: there were fields full of parked cars, exhibition gazebos by the dozen, cycle path diversion signs and security people at the entrance. I tried to pass through on the grounds of being British but I was politely but firmly told to follow the diversion signs which took me round the back of the estate. The castle stayed out of sight.

I didn’t want to get back to the hotel too early so I cycled slower and slower as the day went by. I managed to make the 50km last 3 hours and 18 minutes, and average moving speed of 9.6mph.

Dutch landscape with windmill

Dutch landscape with bike and waterway

Dutch landscape with big sky

Bike and cycling notes

A knooppunt with several other signs

The quality of Dutch cycling infrastructure is legendary. The routes chosen by Dutch Bike Tours used exclusively the network of cycle routes between numbered nodes called ‘knooppunten’; at each knooppunt there are signs to the next accessible nodes in different directions. It’s possible to follow a route just by having a list of knooppunten, and indeed that was part of the road books provided. The signs are sometimes smaller and less comprehensive than the one in the picture and although in theory there are intermediate signs at non-knooppunt junctions this isn’t always the case, though a rule of ‘if in doubt go straight ahead’ is probably the best option. There are interactive websites and apps for smartphones which you can use to plot and follow routes.

I relied firstly on my handlebar gps which I’d loaded beforehand with the routes, and used the knooppunten as backup confirmation.

With almost no exceptions I cycled without interference from motor traffic. Main roads had separate cycle paths alongside. Minor roads in the countryside had either road markings or textured sides for cyclists; motorists respected these. In villages and towns cyclists can generally go where they wish and will be given priority by motor traffic unless road signs and markings say different. Otherwise the routes followed exclusive cycle paths (‘fietspad’) which could be hard surfaced (tarmac, concrete), gravel or hard-packed earth across country or through woods and forest, and very occasionally single-track mud or sand. Given the variety of surfaces I was glad I had taken my gravel bike with 40mm tyres and not my road bike.

The default Dutch bike has a built-in wheel lock and kick-stand and the default Dutch bike parking stand is designed to take one wheel (generally too narrow for a 40mm tyre), so bike parking at the hotels and elsewhere wasn’t always ideal. My advice is to take a good lock, use it whenever you leave your bike and try determinedly to find something solid to lock it to.

I only carried an emergency mini pump to get me going if I had a puncture (I was using inner tube tyres) but each of the three hotels I used had a track pump to lend guests. On one occasion, despite the pump having a dual connector I couldn’t get it to work with my Presta valves and lost a lot of pressure as a result. I topped up as best I could with the mini-pump. Bicycle shops will generally be happy to loan a pump; I didn’t check out whether petrol station pumps would work.

Finally

This tour was mostly in the province of Gelderland which has an official flag of three horizontal stripes of blue, yellow and black. I didn’t see this anywhere, but I did see many examples of another one – the one in the banner picture above. It was flying everywhere – on public buildings, in private gardens, at commercial sites. It is the flag of the Achterhoek, a cultural region covering much of Gelderland but extending into Germany. It even has its own language, Achterhooks, a branch of Lower Saxon. Wikipedia has a short article about it with links to further reading for anyone interested to know more. The flag-flying certainly left me with the impression that people in the region identified much more strongly with the Achterhoek than with Gelderland.

Rather than a diary, this is a few short notes about both areas from a cycling point of view which might be useful for anyone planning to visit.

Otterlo

There is a good-sized and well-stocked Spar supermarket. It has a cash machine and a post office counter.

I recommend Geerts Tweewielers next to the Spar for hiring bikes. There’s another bike hire business on the main road but it’s only a hire shop; Geerts is a bike shop. You know the difference.

Picture: Google StreetView

Eating out choices are limited. De Waldhoorn is the most obvious and popular but we thought the menu was uninspiring. ‘t Smulhuis is an Eastern/Indonesian style restaurant where we had one perfectly satisfactory evening meal but weren’t inspired to go back. We didn’t try the pizza place next to Spar, nor either of the two up-market hotel restaurants out of the town centre.

Hoge Veluwe National Park

Otterlo is one of three places with entry to the Hoge Veluwe National Park. Rather than being open access you have to pay to go into this national park. In August 2022 a day pass cost €11.30 for adults, €5.65 for children between 6 and 13 years, free for children under 6 years.

If you plan to explore the park it’s worth paying a little extra for the map available at the entrance kiosk.

You can pay to park just outside the Otterlo entrance, or pay more to take your car into the park itself. Taking a bicycle into the park is free.

The Park operates an impressive ‘white bicycle‘ scheme. Just inside the entrance you will find a large bicycle park full of white bicycles which are free to use – you just take one and ride it away. Most of them are adult size with step-through frames, but there are smaller sizes, some special machines, even a few tandems. Saddle and handlebar heights can be adjusted by hand. One warning though – the bikes have no brake levers on the handlebars, so no rim or disc brakes. The only brake is a back-pedal brake on  the rear hub, which if you haven’t ridden one before takes a bit of getting used to. The bikes have no gears, but as the Park is virtually flat that isn’t a problem.

If you use a white bike to ride to one of the visitor attractions in the Park you leave your bike in the general bike park you will find there. There’s no reservation system, so when you’re ready to move on you can retrieve the same bike if it’s still there, otherwise you just take another one. At the end of your visit you leave the bike in the bike park by the entrance.

With my own bike and the hired bikes my family were riding we carried locks to secure our bikes when we left them to visit one of the sites in the Park.

Once inside the Park cars, bikes and walkers are effectively separated. The map you can buy at the entrance shows the different roads, tracks and paths for each, and waymarks help you navigate. The cycle paths are hard-surfaced, traffic-free and safe. There’s even an emergency help system designed primarily for the white bikes: every 200 metres on the cycle paths there is a sign on the path, either a metal plaque inset in the surface or a painted sign, with a location code and a phone number to call for assistance.

Cycle path causeway

Here is a Komoot map of a ride I did around the south of the Park after exploring the northern sector with my family earlier in the day. As you can see, it would be easy to cover the whole Park in a short day. The landscape is a mixture of mixed woodland and open heath. In the exceptionally dry summer weather the heath was brown and the ground, which is mostly sand, was bone dry. I found cycling through this landscape monotonous at first, but after a while it became mesmerising. Naturalists visit the Park for its wildlife; I didn’t see much at this time of day apart from a family of three wild boar which crossed the cycle path about 200 metres ahead of me but had disappeared by the time I got there.

Kröller-Müller Art Museum

Inside the National Park this internationally famous art museum is the reason most people come to Otterlo. It has the second-largest Van Gogh collection in the world along with major works by other modern artists. The extensive grounds house a large collection of outdoor modern sculptures. I will just say it is AMAZING! Follow the link if you’re interested, and if you are interested, don’t miss it!

Ede

The four of us took advantage of the legendary Dutch cycle paths to spend a day outside the National Park riding to Ede, the main town in the district. Considerably larger than Otterlo, with a good mix of shops, cafés, open spaces and on the day of our visit a lively market. I show the route here just as a demonstration of what’s possible. The only tricky part was getting out of Ede, as the route wiggles through the residential suburbs for a couple of kilometres before reaching the open countryside. The 7 year old in our group managed the 15 miles happily in the day, even while riding a remarkably heavy small bike with no gears – rather a come-down from the good bike she has at home. The other two adults rode their hired Dutch-style bikes. A coffee/soda stop and lunch in Ede helped keep young spirits and energy levels up, and an afternoon break at Boerderij Mossel on the way back, where various cakes, biscuits and chips were consumed, completed the ride nicely.

Boerderij Mossel is a farm which has expanded into the hospitality business. There is no public road to it so the only motor vehicles permitted are those serving the business or which have booked accommodation. Otherwise the customers are cyclists or hikers. It was busy on this Saturday afternoon.

Geel

Geel is a small town in the Belgian province of Antwerp, with a population a little over 40,000. It has a quietly prosperous feel to it, with a wide range of shops and places to eat and drink. The market square (Markt) is the centre of the town – a car-free wide open space surrounded on two sides by bars and restaurants, some with classy apartments above; the dominant church is on a third side.

It is best known for its association with Saint Dimpna (Dimphna or Dymphna), and through her the town’s hospital founded in the middle ages and which developed innovative approaches to helping people with mental illnesses. There is a church in her name and a hospital museum. Read the stories on the links for more information.

‘Geel’ is the Dutch/Flemish word for ‘yellow’, which Google translates on some of its pages.

Eating and drinking

I only tried places on or just off the main square.

• The Irish Pub. Apart from serving Guinness this pub is about as Irish as a jellied eel stall in Southend-on-Sea. The craic wasn’t there when I was.
• Het Forum. Pleasant place for a beer and to watch whatever’s happening in the square. I wasn’t impressed with the food menu so didn’t eat there.
• De Kruimel. Another good place for a beer, and they do a good pizza.
• Brasserie Flore. This is where the prosperous middle classes of Geel seem to go to eat. I had two good evening meals there; it was busy both times but the service was friendly and smooth. Not the cheapest, but to me it was worth it. The place next door, de Post, looks as if it competes with Flore but my AirBnB hostess shuddered at the thought of going there.
• Bart Bar. An odd little place down a side street, open until late.

Cycling

The key to cycling in Flanders (the northern part of Belgium) is the astonishing network of cycle routes which run between numbered connecting nodes, or ‘knooppunten’. You can plan your ride using the online fietsroute map to connect whatever nodes you choose, download or print a list of the numbers and follow the list using the physical signposts on the ground. Better still, download your chosen route as a gpx file and load it onto your handlebar computer for belt-and-braces navigation.

The cycle paths I used were virtually all completely segregated from motor traffic. Where they weren’t the roads were very quiet back lanes in the countryside, or coloured sections of tarmac through quiet residential areas, or small town streets where cyclists have priority. Otherwise I was riding through open farmland, shady forest (cool on a hot day), or alongside big canals.

I particularly wanted to visit two features I had read about. Just over the provincial border the Province of Limburg declares itself a ‘cycling paradise’ – see here and here. They hired architects (I think, or artists, or both) to design what have become “Fietsen door de Bomen” (Bikes through the Trees) and “Fietsen door het Water” (Bikes through the Water). In the first, a spiral ramp takes you up from ground level to the tops of the pine trees. In the second you ride on a sunken path below the surface of the surrounding lake. I have put my own pictures below, but the links have more and better.

• Fietsen door de Bomen
• Fietsen door het Water

Knooppunt on Albertkanaal

Forest cycle path

Fietsen door de Bomen

Fietsen door de Bomen

Fietsen door de Bomen

Fietsen door het Water

Fietsen door het Water