Aug 18, 2026
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Utrecht 2026 Complete Guide
Discover the Dom Tower, canal wharves, museums, and perfect day trips from this charming Dutch city.
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Love Netherlands
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Dear Netherlands,
There’s a version of the Netherlands that tourists rarely find. It’s in Jordaan on a Saturday morning, where the Noordermarkt smells of fresh bread and old cheese. It’s in Utrecht, where canal-level wharfs have become the most beautiful cafés in Europe. It’s in Delft, where Vermeer’s light still falls across the same brick walls.
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Photo via Love Netherlands
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In today’s email:
- Utrecht, Netherlands: The Complete City Guide (2026)
- At The Café — Café ‘t Smalle — Jordaan’s Tiny Canal Hideaway
- Around The Web — Tracing Your Dutch-Indonesian Roots: A Heritage Guide for the Indo Diaspora, Maastricht, Netherlands: The Complete Visitor’s Guide (2026), Best Time to Visit the Netherlands: A Month-by-Month Guide (2026) + more
- From Love Netherlands — Discover Your South Holland Roots: Heritage, Diaspora, and Family History
- Dutch Food You Will Love — Dutch Cheese Beyond the Tourist Shops
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Utrecht, Netherlands: The Complete City Guide (2026)
👉 Read the full story
Utrecht sits at the heart of the Netherlands and quietly ranks as one of its most rewarding cities. With around 360,000 inhabitants, it is the country’s fourth largest city, yet it draws only a fraction of the crowds that pour through Amsterdam. The ancient Oudegracht canal cuts through the centre, and below the street level, wharf-side restaurants and bars occupy medieval cellar vaults that open directly onto the water. The Dom Tower rises 112 metres over terracotta rooftops. Cyclists outnumber pedestrians on every street. Utrecht is not trying to impress you. It simply is. Love the Netherlands? Join our free newsletter for hidden Dutch gems → inlovewithnetherlands.com/subscribe Why Visit Utrecht? Most visitors arrive in the Netherlands through Amsterdam and stay there. That is understandable, but Utrecht offers something distinctly different. People have lived here continuously since…
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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 Smalle — Jordaan’s Tiny Canal Hideaway
Café ‘t Smalle is exactly what its name says: small. It’s tucked on the Egelantiersgracht in the Jordaan, with a handful of tables inside and a tiny floating terrace on the canal that’s always full the moment the sun comes out. The building has been a café since 1786. You don’t go for the menu — you go because it’s one of the most beautiful places in Amsterdam to sit with a glass of wine and watch the boats drift past. Rain or shine, locals have been doing exactly this for two hundred and forty years.
👉 Visit the café
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Around The Web
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From Love Netherlands
Your family may have come from South Holland. You might not know it yet. South Holland is the most populous province in the Netherlands. It holds Rotterdam, The Hague, Leiden, Delft, and Dordrecht. For three centuries, it was also the place most Dutch emigrants called home before they left. If you have Dutch roots in South Africa, America, or Indonesia, there is a good chance your story begins in South Holland. This guide will help you find it.…
👉 Read the full story
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Photo via Love Netherlands
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Dutch Food You Will Love
Dutch Cheese Beyond the Tourist Shops
The cheese in every Amsterdam tourist-shop window is usually young and mild. Nice enough for a sandwich. But the real Dutch cheese is aged — four, six, sometimes twelve months — and it’s where the country’s centuries of dairy craft actually show up. Aged Gouda picks up tiny white crystals and a deep nutty flavour that sits somewhere between an English cheddar and an Italian Parmigiano. You have to find a farmhouse dairy, or a Friday market stall in Alkmaar, or the kind of small family shop that closes at lunchtime for 90 minutes and nobody complains.
👉 Read the full story
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