Jul 08, 2026
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Discover Your Frisian Roots
Uncover ancestral stories amongst ancient terpen villages and family archives in enchanting Friesland.
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Love Netherlands
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Dear Netherlands,
It’s easy to miss the thing that makes the Netherlands special. It isn’t the windmills or the tulips or the canals, though all of those are real and beautiful. It’s a particular kind of attention — the way a Dutch baker arranges the croissants, the way a Dutch cycle lane goes exactly where you need it, the way a brown café has the same four regulars in the same four seats for forty years. Pay attention to that, and you’ll start to love the Netherlands in a way most visitors never do.
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Photo: Shutterstock
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In today’s email:
- Tracing Your Family in Friesland: A Heritage Travel Plan
- At The Café — Café Hoppe — The Brown Café at the Centre of Amsterdam
- Around The Web — The Dutch Words That Don’t Translate — and What They Tell You About the Netherlands, The VOC Trail: Following Your Dutch Ancestors to the East, Dutch Healthcare for American Retirees: What You Need to Know (2026 Guide) + more
- From Love Netherlands — Amsterdam Food Guide: What to Eat, Where to Eat, and Dutch Dishes You’ll Love (2026)
- Dutch Food You Will Love — Speculaas — The Spiced Biscuit That Smells Like Christmas
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Tracing Your Family in Friesland: A Heritage Travel Plan
👉 Read the full story
Friesland feels different from the rest of the Netherlands. The skies are wider. The land is flat and ancient. And the language you hear in the streets is unlike anything you have heard before. If your family name ends in -ma, -stra, or -sma, there is a very good chance your story began here. Friesland heritage travel is one of the most rewarding journeys a Dutch descendant can take. Friesland is a province that remembers its people. Church records here go back centuries. Archives in Leeuwarden hold millions of names. The villages your ancestors lived in still stand on the same ancient mounds where they built their first homes. This is a place where the past is close to the surface. This guide is a practical travel plan for anyone coming to Friesland to find their roots. It covers what to prepare before you travel, where to go each day, and how to get the most from the records and…
👉 Read the full story
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 Hoppe — The Brown Café at the Centre of Amsterdam
Café Hoppe on the Spui has been pouring beer since 1670 — long enough that the wooden floor has sunk slightly at the door from three and a half centuries of footfall. It’s the kind of place where the bartender knows the regulars’ orders, the tourists get treated exactly the same as the locals, and the bitterballen come out exactly hot enough to burn the roof of your mouth if you don’t wait. It sits right in the middle of the city, a few minutes’ walk from the Dam, and it’s one of the last genuinely authentic brown cafés you can still find without trying. Come in the late afternoon, sit outside on the pavement, and order a beer.
👉 Visit the café
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Around The Web
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From Love Netherlands
Amsterdam is one of Europe’s great food cities — but you’d never know it from most tourist guides. Beneath the surface of its famous canals and museums lies a thriving food culture built on centuries of trade, immigration, and an unshakeable Dutch love of good produce. This Amsterdam food guide covers everything you need to know: the street snacks that define the city, the markets where locals actually shop, the traditional dishes worth sitting…
👉 Read the full story
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Photo via Love Netherlands
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Dutch Food You Will Love
Speculaas — The Spiced Biscuit That Smells Like Christmas
Speculaas is a thin, crisp biscuit pressed with a wooden mould into intricate patterns — windmills, ships, faces from old folktales — and spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, white pepper and cardamom. It’s eaten year-round but reaches its peak in early December when bakeries make whole speculaaspoppen the size of your forearm. The big windmill-shaped biscuits show up free on saucers at every café from October onwards. A good speculaas should snap cleanly between your fingers and release the warm spice smell before you’ve even raised it to your mouth.
👉 Read the full story
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