Jun 07, 2026
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Drenthe’s Ancient Secrets Await
Discover megalithic wonders, Van Gogh’s muse, and the Netherlands’ most timeless landscape.
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Love Netherlands
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Dear Netherlands,
The first thing you notice when you arrive in the Netherlands is how much of it is water. The second thing is how comfortable the Dutch are with it. They cycle past canals, they eat herring leaning over the side of a railing, they build cities below sea level and make them look effortless. It’s the quiet confidence of a country that knows exactly what it is.
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Dwingelderveld-2. Photo: Herman-Jonkman / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0 nl)
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In today’s email:
- The Quiet Kingdom: A Complete Guide to Drenthe
- At The Café — Café ‘T Mandje — The First Lesbian Bar in Amsterdam
- Around The Web — Giethoorn Day Trip from Amsterdam: The Complete Guide, Dutch Surnames of Gelderland: Origins and Meanings, Rotterdam Day Trip from Amsterdam: The Complete 2026 Guide + more
- From Love Netherlands — Dutch Surnames of North Brabant: Origins and Meanings
- Dutch Food You Will Love — Kibbeling — The Dutch Fried Cod From the Fish Stall
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The Quiet Kingdom: A Complete Guide to Drenthe
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The Quiet Kingdom: A Complete Guide to Drenthe Megalithic tombs older than the pyramids, Van Gogh’s brooding peat country, and the most ancient soul in the Netherlands An introduction to Drenthe Most visitors to the Netherlands never make it past the Randstad — the great horseshoe of cities that curves from Amsterdam through Utrecht down to Rotterdam and The Hague. That is entirely understandable. The Randstad is magnificent. But it is only one face of a country that is far older and stranger and quieter than the canal-house postcards suggest, and nowhere makes that point more forcefully than Drenthe. Tucked into the north-east of the country, far from the motorway hum and the tourist trails, Drenthe is the Netherlands’ most sparsely populated province. It is also its oldest. While much of the Low Countries was still submerged or smothered in bog, Drenthe’s sandy glacial ridges were…
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Have you been there? Do you have a memory of this corner of the Netherlands? Hit reply and tell us — we’d love to hear your story.
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At The Café
Café ‘T Mandje — The First Lesbian Bar in Amsterdam
Café ‘T Mandje on the Zeedijk opened in 1927, run by Bet van Beeren — one of the first openly lesbian bar owners in the world. The bar’s interior is preserved exactly as Bet left it: dozens of cut-off ties pinned to the ceiling (her custom for any man who got too rowdy), framed photos of regulars from the 1930s onwards, and the same long wooden bar her customers leaned on for half a century. It’s still a working café and an active part of LGBTQ history. Stop in for a beer, take in the ceiling, and read the small museum corner near the door.
👉 Visit the café
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Around The Web
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From Love Netherlands
North Brabant is the largest province in the south of the Netherlands. It sits between Belgium, Zeeland, and the river Maas. The province has a culture and history unlike the northern provinces. The surnames of North Brabant tell this story clearly. Many reflect the province’s Catholic faith, its Flemish connections, and its rich farming heritage. If your family name appears in this guide, your roots may lie in this corner of the Netherlands.…
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Photo via Love Netherlands
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Dutch Food You Will Love
Kibbeling — The Dutch Fried Cod From the Fish Stall
Kibbeling is bite-sized chunks of cod, dipped in spiced beer batter and deep-fried until the outside crackles and the fish inside flakes apart. Every fish stall in every Dutch town square sells it, served in a paper cone with a small pot of garlic-and-mustard whitlofsaus. There’s nothing quite like the first bite on a cold afternoon, salt and crisp and steam all in one go. Dutch fried fish is taken seriously here — every region has its own batter recipe, and the truly local stalls cook to order rather than pre-frying.
👉 Read the full story
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