Aug 11, 2026
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Giethoorn: Netherlands’ Canal Village
Explore the car-free Dutch gem where boats replace roads and thatched farmhouses line tranquil waterways.
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Love Netherlands
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Dear Netherlands,
There are two kinds of mornings in the Dutch spring. The kind where you cycle to the market and come home with warm cheese and rye bread and a handful of wild tulips. And the kind where it rains sideways for an hour, then the sun comes out and everything looks like a Vermeer. Today, if you’re lucky, is one of those mornings.
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Photo via Love Netherlands
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In today’s email:
- Giethoorn Netherlands: Your Complete Guide to the Car-Free Village
- At The Café — Café Olivier — The Church That Became Utrecht’s Favourite Bar
- Around The Web — Best Time to Visit the Netherlands: A Month-by-Month Guide (2026), Discover Your North Holland Roots: Heritage, Diaspora, and Family History, Rotterdam Food Guide: Where to Eat, Drink and Explore the Market Scene (2026) + more
- From Love Netherlands — Discover Your Friesland Roots: Heritage, Diaspora, and Family History
- Dutch Food You Will Love — Pannenkoeken — The Dutch Pancake That Eats Like a Meal
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Giethoorn Netherlands: Your Complete Guide to the Car-Free Village
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Few places in the Netherlands stop visitors in their tracks quite like Giethoorn . This car-free village in Overijssel replaces roads with narrow waterways, thatched farmhouses line the banks, and the loudest sound you’ll hear most mornings is birdsong. Giethoorn Netherlands is often called the Venice of the North — and once you drift through its canals on a whisper boat, you’ll understand why. This guide covers everything you need to plan a visit, from getting there and hiring a boat to the best spots to eat and the smartest times to go. Love the Netherlands? Join our free newsletter for hidden Dutch gems → inlovewithnetherlands.com/subscribe What Is Giethoorn? Giethoorn is a village of around 2,600 residents in the Dutch province of Overijssel, roughly 130 kilometres northeast of Amsterdam. The village came into being in the thirteenth century, when settlers dug turf from the boggy…
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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 Olivier — The Church That Became Utrecht’s Favourite Bar
Café Olivier in Utrecht is a working Belgian bar inside a deconsecrated 19th-century church. The pulpit is still there. The stained glass is still there. The pews have been replaced with long wooden tables where students, workers, and retired professors all somehow end up sharing a Trappist beer. It’s the kind of place that makes you understand why the Dutch are so comfortable with the quiet strangeness of their country — nothing here is trying to impress you, but everything is worth looking at twice.
👉 Visit the café
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Around The Web
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From Love Netherlands
Stand in the quiet churchyard of a terp village in Friesland — a mound of earth that farmers built by hand over centuries to keep the sea at bay — and you feel the weight of an extraordinary story. The families who lived here did not simply inhabit this land. They shaped it, defended it, and carried its memory with them when they left. If your surname traces back to this province, you carry a piece of that story too. Friesland is unlike any…
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Photo via Love Netherlands
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Dutch Food You Will Love
Pannenkoeken — The Dutch Pancake That Eats Like a Meal
A Dutch pannenkoek is the size of a dinner plate, thinner than an American pancake but thicker than a French crêpe, and it’s served as a full meal — savoury or sweet, never both. The classic order is a pannenkoek met spek (with bacon) drizzled in stroop. Children get them with apple and cinnamon. The pannenkoekenhuis tradition runs in old farmhouses and converted mills across the countryside, where you can sit at long tables and order a pancake the size of your face for the price of a sandwich. It’s the Sunday family lunch you’ll wish your grandmother had known about.
👉 Read the full story
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