Cycling holidays Highlights of the Netherlands

Individual arrival to Amsterdam! How about a boat tour through the canals?

You start with a ride through Amsterdam, along old and modern buildings. You leave the city over the IJ-waterside, shortly afterwards you cycle through rural landscape with picturesque villages, which are located on the former Zuiderzee. The tour leads on to the western part of the Netherlands, to the peat area Zaanstreek with its traditional wooden houses and a lot of mills and on to Zaandam.

Your tour leads to Haarlem. The historic inner city is surrounded by canals, furthermore it is coined through many old roads and buildings from 16th to 19th century. Afterwards you cycle through extended dunes to the bathing resort Noordwijk.

Today you cycle via Leiden and Den Haag to Delft. Leiden is the oldest University City of the Netherlands and had its high period (exactly as Amsterdam) in the 17th century. Den Haag is the residence of the royal family and seat of the Dutch government. Delft is the city of Willem van Oranje (16th century), the “father of the fatherland”. With his fight against the Spanish empire he created the basis for the republic of the united Netherlands.

Today you cycle from Delft to harbour city Rotterdam. After the damage through bombing raids in Second World War many houses had to be built new. Rotterdam therefore is, compared to other cities along the bike tour, a modern city with skyscrapers. If you like you can make a detour to Kinderdijk. There is no other place in the world with so many mills at one place!

From Rotterdam you cycle to Gouda, the city which got its name from the popular Gouda-cheese. You will find a historic centre with canals here too and of course a cheese market. Afterwards you cycle to Nieuwkoop which is located at the Nieuwkoopse Plassen, which occurred due to the dig off of peat soil.

On your last cycle day river Amstel is leading you along architectural interesting buildings back to Amsterdam.