Aug 06, 2026
|
Den Bosch Day Trip Guide
Medieval art, hidden canals and the Netherlands’ finest pastry is waiting your Amsterdam escape.
|
|
Love Netherlands
|
|
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.
|
|
Was this forwarded to you? Subscribe free and never miss an edition →
|
|
If the daily newsletter brings you closer to the Netherlands, our Sunday Premium Edition takes you deeper into it. Every Sunday you’ll receive travel deep dives, curated itineraries, regional stories, and hidden gems you won’t find anywhere else.
Upgrade for less than the price of a pint and see the Netherlands in a completely new way.
|
Photo: Zanaq via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 1.0)
|
In today’s email:
- Den Bosch Day Trip from Amsterdam: Cathedral, Canals and the Bossche Bol (2026)
- At The Café — Café Chris — The Oldest Brown Café in the Jordaan
- Around The Web — Rotterdam Food Guide: Where to Eat, Drink and Explore the Market Scene (2026), Tracing Your Family in Drenthe: A Heritage Travel Plan, Tracing Your Family in Utrecht: A Heritage Travel Plan + more
- From Love Netherlands — Tracing Your Family in Flevoland: A Heritage Travel Plan
- Dutch Food You Will Love — Raw Herring — The Dutch Test
|
Den Bosch Day Trip from Amsterdam: Cathedral, Canals and the Bossche Bol (2026)
👉 Read the full story
Den Bosch is one of the most rewarding day trips from Amsterdam in the Netherlands — and one of the most underrated. Officially named ‘s-Hertogenbosch, this medieval North Brabant city packs a remarkable amount into a compact centre: a towering Gothic cathedral, a labyrinth of hidden canals, a world-class museum dedicated to its most famous son, and a cream-filled chocolate pastry you will think about for weeks. If you have never heard of Den Bosch, you are about to wonder why nobody told you sooner. Love the Netherlands? Join our free newsletter for hidden Dutch gems → inlovewithnetherlands.com/subscribe Why Visit Den Bosch? Amsterdam draws the crowds. Rotterdam earns the architecture admirers. Maastricht wins the food lovers. But Den Bosch occupies a territory all of its own: a city that has preserved its medieval bones intact, produced one of the most mysterious artists in European…
👉 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.
|
|
“Want deep dives into the Netherlands every Sunday? Our Premium readers already have their next edition waiting.”
|
At The Café
Café Chris — The Oldest Brown Café in the Jordaan
Café Chris on the Bloemstraat opened in 1624 — making it, depending on whom you ask, the oldest continuously operating bar in Amsterdam. The bell-pull next to the urinal is still wired to the bar, so the bartender knows when to flush. The walls hold framed Ajax memorabilia from the 1970s, and the regulars are mostly Jordaan locals who have been coming since their fathers brought them in for the first jenever. It’s small, it’s loud on Saturday nights, and it’s one of the most authentic brown cafés left in the city.
👉 Visit the café
|
Around The Web
|
From Love Netherlands
Most Dutch provinces carry centuries of history. Flevoland carries something rarer — the memory of water. This land did not exist until the 20th century. The fields, towns, and farmhouses you see today were built on the bottom of the Zuiderzee sea. If your family settled here, they were pioneers in the truest sense. Tracing your Flevoland roots means understanding both where they arrived — and where they came from before. A Province Built From…
👉 Read the full story
|
Photo: Wikimedia Commons (via Wikipedia)
|
Dutch Food You Will Love
Raw Herring — The Dutch Test
Every spring, a Dutch ritual unfolds on the streets of Amsterdam, The Hague, and Scheveningen. Herring stalls put out the year’s first catch — the Hollandse nieuwe — and locals queue to eat it raw, tipped back by the tail, sometimes on a soft white roll with onions. It tastes of the sea and of brine and, if you’re lucky, of nothing at all in the best possible way. Foreigners tend to grimace the first time. The Dutch laugh gently. “Three bites,” they say. “Then you love it forever.” They are usually right.
👉 Read the full story
|
|
Know Someone Who Loves the Netherlands?
If you’re enjoying this letter, the best thing you could do is forward it to one friend who’d love the Netherlands too. This newsletter grows by word of mouth alone — every single subscriber came from someone sending it to someone else. Thank you for being one of the first.
|
|
Our daily newsletter is free and always will be. But for less than the price of a pint, you can upgrade to our Sunday Premium Edition, which gives you access to our travel deep dives, curated itineraries, and regional stories. Consider buying us a stroopwafel — it’s the Dutch way to say thank you.
|
Also From Our Family
Love Ireland too? Over 64,000 readers wake up each morning to the Love Ireland newsletter — loveireland.substack.com
Or Scotland? Join 43,000 Scotland lovers — lovescotland.substack.com
|
|
You’re reading Love Netherlands — a free letter about canal towns, hidden villages, and Dutch stories, delivered Monday to Friday.
inlovewithnetherlands.com ·
Unsubscribe
© 2026 Love Netherlands · Part of the Love To Visit LLC family
|
