Jul 27, 2026
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Europe’s Hidden Water Kingdom
Discover how a medieval flood created a wild tidal paradise where nature reclaims the land.
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Love Netherlands
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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.
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Nationaal Park De Biesbosch. Photo: Donarreiskoffer via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
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In today’s email:
- Into the Drowned Lands: Your Complete Guide to The Biesbosch
- At The Café — In de Wildeman — Amsterdam’s Quietest Beer Cathedral
- Around The Web — Gouda Day Trip from Amsterdam or Rotterdam: The Complete Guide (2026), Tracing Your Family in Overijssel: A Heritage Travel Plan, Tracing Your Family in North Brabant: A Heritage Travel Plan + more
- From Love Netherlands — Tracing Your Family in Utrecht: A Heritage Travel Plan
- Dutch Food You Will Love — Tompouce — The Dutch Pastry Built Like a Sandwich
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Into the Drowned Lands: Your Complete Guide to The Biesbosch
👉 Read the full story
Into the Drowned Lands: Your Complete Guide to The Biesbosch Where a medieval catastrophe gave birth to one of Europe’s last freshwater tidal wildernesses — and where beavers, eagles and whisper-quiet waterways await in the willows. An introduction to The Biesbosch There is a particular quality of silence in the Biesbosch that takes a moment to place. You are drifting in a small electric boat through a corridor of willows, the engine barely audible beneath you, the only sounds the creak of branches and the distant piping of a reed warbler somewhere deep in the rushes. Then you notice the gnawed stump on the bank — a willow the thickness of your thigh, cut clean at an angle by a set of teeth you realise are very large indeed — and you understand that this place is not simply a nature reserve. It is a functioning wild system, returned to itself after centuries of managed use, 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
In de Wildeman — Amsterdam’s Quietest Beer Cathedral
In de Wildeman is hidden down an alley off the Nieuwendijk, a former 18th-century distillery turned proeflokaal — a tasting room. The room is dark wood, low ceilings, brass taps, and a wall lined with hundreds of glass bottles. There’s no music. No televisions. The menu has more than 250 beers including 18 on tap, and the staff genuinely know which one to put in your hand based on what you’ve eaten that day. Order a Trappist, take a stool at the back bar, and listen to a city you thought you couldn’t escape.
👉 Visit the café
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Around The Web
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From Love Netherlands
Your ancestor left Utrecht for somewhere far away. Perhaps it was New Amsterdam in the 1630s. Perhaps it was the Dutch East Indies a century later. Perhaps it was South Africa during the Boer era. Whatever the story, the records are still there — waiting for you in the heart of the Netherlands. Utrecht province sits at the geographic centre of the Netherlands. It is a small province, but a rich one. Its archives hold centuries of births, deaths,…
👉 Read the full story
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Photo via Love Netherlands
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Dutch Food You Will Love
Tompouce — The Dutch Pastry Built Like a Sandwich
A tompouce is two crisp layers of puff pastry sandwiching a slab of vanilla pastry cream, topped with a layer of bright pink fondant icing. It’s the dessert that signals minor celebration in the Netherlands — birthdays at the office, retirements, Friday afternoons. On King’s Day the icing turns orange instead of pink. The tompouce is impossible to eat tidily and the Dutch love arguing about whether you should attack it from the side with a fork or just give in and eat it with your hands. The official answer is: there is no official answer.
👉 Read the full story
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