Oct 06, 2026
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Dutch Tulip Fields Beyond Keukenhof
Skip the crowds and discover where locals cycle through vibrant spring blooms across the Bollenstreek and beyond.
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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 via Love Netherlands
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In today’s email:
- Tulip Fields in the Netherlands: Where to See Them Beyond Keukenhof (2026 Guide)
- At The Café — Café De Druif — A Sailors’ Bar With a Pirate’s Story
- Around The Web — Rotterdam Netherlands: Complete Guide to Things to Do and See, Dutch Healthcare for American Retirees: Everything You Need to Know (2026), The Dutch-American Homecoming: From New York to Old Holland + more
- From Love Netherlands — The Love Netherlands Guide № 007: Dutch Beer & Brewing
- Dutch Food You Will Love — Kibbeling — The Dutch Fried Cod From the Fish Stall
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Tulip Fields in the Netherlands: Where to See Them Beyond Keukenhof (2026 Guide)
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Every spring, the tulip fields in the Netherlands turn the flat countryside into something that looks painted — long horizontal stripes of red, yellow, pink and purple stretching to the horizon. Most visitors head straight to Keukenhof, the famous flower garden near Lisse. It is spectacular. But the actual tulip fields in the Netherlands are something else entirely: raw, working farmland where the colours roll across the landscape for kilometre after kilometre. Love the Netherlands? Join our free newsletter for hidden Dutch gems → inlovewithnetherlands.com/subscribe This guide covers where to see the tulip fields in the Netherlands beyond Keukenhof — the Bollenstreek flower bulb region, the best cycling routes through the blooms, the far-flung fields of Flevoland, and everything you need to plan your spring visit. When Do the Tulip Fields Bloom in the Netherlands? Tulip season in the…
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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 De Druif — A Sailors’ Bar With a Pirate’s Story
Café De Druif on the Rapenburgerplein is a small brown café in Amsterdam’s old Eastern Docklands neighbourhood, founded in 1631. It once served sailors heading out from the East India Company quays, and the worn wooden bar has barely changed. Folklore says Piet Hein — the Dutch admiral who captured the Spanish silver fleet — drank here. The place is small, the regulars are friendly, and on a quiet weekday afternoon you can sit alone with a borrel of jenever and feel four centuries of Amsterdam waterfront history settle around you.
👉 Visit the café
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Around The Web
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From Love Netherlands
When a Dutch bartender pulls your lager, scrapes the foam flat with a little spatula and hands it over with two fingers of white head still on top, that is not sloppiness — it is the house style, and arguing about it is practically a national pastime. The Netherlands sells pale pilsner around the world, yet behind the big green bottles sits a Trappist abbey brewing under papal-era rules, a brewery working inside a 400-year-old windmill, and a…
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Photo by Dave Visser on Unsplash
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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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