Bike ride through Dutch forests

Oct 10, 2023  –  ⁠,

A couple of days after Maastricht we went for a bike ride through a nearby forest. Loes observed that the cloudy light that day was something she had never seen outside of the Netherlands and that she misses now that she’s leaving abroad.

A windy and cloudy Dutch nature landscape.
A windy and cloudy Dutch nature landscape.

We came across older people riding touring bikes, younger bikers on road bikes and runners. If I lived near a park like this I would come exercise as frequently as I could. You’re inside a forest in the country side, it’s blissfully quiet and green.

We made two stops: one at a World War I fence at the Dutch - Belgium border that used to be electrified to prevent Belgians from escaping into neutral Netherlands, and another stop at a hundreds of years old abbey brewery.

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More than one hour and 15km later, we had only gained 4m of elevation gain and despite the heavy touring bikes and the, at times, gravel and grass, I don’t think I broke a sweat.

The Netherlands, aka ‘Flat-Land’
The Netherlands, aka ‘Flat-Land’