Biking through the Hoge Veluwe
In the middle of the Netherlands is a big beautiful national park full of woods, heathland and sand dunes. Formerly the hunting area of the Krüller-Muller family, rich art collecting industrials, the Hoge Veluwe is now a delight for nature-loving tourists. Since we had to be in the area anyway, we had taken the advantage of bringing our bikes and to go and explore. Once arrived we learned we didn't even need to bring our bikes: at the entrance and many other points in the park white bikes are available free for use.
The park entrance is not free (7 euro + additionally 7 euro if you want to visit the Krüller-Muller museum) but it sure is worth its price! There's lots of trails to take for bikes, walks, horseback riding, ... and of course there's guided tours as well.
Unfortunately the wildlife (red deer, mouflons, wild swines, ...) seemed to be convinced that it was better to leave the humans alone on their trails and to not disturb us in our natural habitat so they remained in hiding.
The park entrance is not free (7 euro + additionally 7 euro if you want to visit the Krüller-Muller museum) but it sure is worth its price! There's lots of trails to take for bikes, walks, horseback riding, ... and of course there's guided tours as well.
Unfortunately the wildlife (red deer, mouflons, wild swines, ...) seemed to be convinced that it was better to leave the humans alone on their trails and to not disturb us in our natural habitat so they remained in hiding.
Comments
There's one relatively new one "nearby" Leuven but it's really woods and nature scattered in between the many villages that got consolidated and protected but there's no true "entrances" so there it is free.
There's a national park in the Ardennes but I don't think you need to pay either. Only at the coast there's a Belgian/Dutch park at a river estuarium/dune flooding area and that's payable but it's a park with fine accomodations.
@Lilacspecs....check out that 3rd picture: those are ups and downs in between dunes. The hills look tiny but are therefore more tricky as they are so sneeky. Most of the uphill patches are not clear uphill and therefore you get up on them in the wrong gear and wonder why all of a sudden you don't progress anymore and you are breathing so heavily...ah dugh it's a sneeky uphill patch again ;)
So yes of course no big hills but it's not quite flat either. It depends what you are used to I suppose. I surely was happy to ride my own bike with different gears as opposed to the free white bikes without gears.
(I was going to ask you if you remembered a large group of really LOUD Dutch people, but heh heh, you probably saw your share of those along the way... ;-) )
I love the Hoge Veluwe!!! Will post some pictures maybe tomorrow. Kroeller Mueller is one of my favorite museums ever, but we didn't visit it this time...