Posted under Holland Tour 2008
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Tags Holland, Nature
Today we travelled from Arnhem to Leersum, a stopover on our way to see Utrecht. Leersum turned out to be a real gem. The B&B was in the woods on the outskirts of the town, and had its own Sauna, which was very welcome after a day in the saddle.
The owner kept bees, which was of great interest to Janina as she is also a beekeeper.
Beehives at our B&B, Leersum
Posted under Holland Tour 2008
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Tags Culture, Holland, Nature
We expected this visit to be the high point of the tour for us, and it certainly did not disappoint. The Hoge Veluwe National Park and the Kroller-Muller museum and Art Gallery at its centre are absolutely stunning and we enjoyed our best day of the holiday so far.
The park itself is enormous, and can only be visited on foot or by bicycle. To give an idea of the size, a tour of the park by bike involves completing a ride of around 35Km. The Kroller-Muller museum and Art Gallery contain numerous works by Van Gogh, Picasso, Mondrian, Rodin, Moore and Hepworth among others.
You can find out more about the park by visiting its website, which includes a live webcam, here.
Those who arrive by car must park at the entrance and take one of the famous ‘white bikes’ to tour the park…
The white bikes in the Hoge Veluwe National Park
Views of the Hoge Veluwe National Park including the beehives
A selection of sculptures from the Sculpture Garden at the Kroller-Muller museum…
We dined at the Buffet restaurant near the entrance to the park. Steve paid another of his visits to the Slagroom… I should hastily point out that this is not a colloquial term for a ‘house of ill repute’, but Dutch for whipped cream. The Dutch certainly do their cholesterol in style – diverse cheese and eggs at breakfast, toasted cheese sandwiches (‘tostis’) for lunch and whipped cream on the hot chocolate, Dutch apple cake (a speciality), and in this case, profiteroles!
Steve pays a visit to the slagroom…
Posted under Holland Tour 2008
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Tags Culture, Holland
As the weather was somewhat rainy and overcast we elected to shop and sightsee in Arnhem and defer our trip to the Hoge Veluwe until the next day.
We spend several enjoyable hours visiting the Sonsbeek outdoor sculpture exhibition in Sonsbeek Park.
The Sonsbeek Exhibition only occurs every 7 years. We were therefore fortunate that our tour co-incided with Exhibition year!
Sculptures from the Sonsbeek exhibition…
A view of the Water Mill at Sonsbeek Park
Posted under Holland Tour 2008
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Tags Architecture, Holland, Nature
Views of the geese and the sheep in the garden at Onder de Linden, Balgoij
The new kittens at Onder de Linden, Balgoij
Today we salvaged some of my original route plan and travelled along a pretty countryside route from Balgoij to the East, picking up the LF12 route south of Nijmegen. We then travelled to Nijmegen up the LF12 and stopped for lunch and a look around.
Views of the Church at Nijmegen
View of the cafe near the church at Nijmegen
We then reverted to our new mode of navigation and hopped from town to town to reach Arnhem. We reached Arnhem in good time at about 16:30, but unfortunately my route to the B&B on the southern edge of the Hoge Veluwe National Park proved somewhat suboptimal. We arrived at our B&B at about 19:00.
We stopped here for 3 nights as we planned to spend a day visiting the Hoge Veluwe plus a day shopping and sightseeing in and around Arnhem.