Aug 03, 2026
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The Achterhoek
The Achterhoek In the quiet eastern corner of Gelderland, a landscape of moated castles, book-filled market squares and ancient hedgerow country has been waiting patiently for you…
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Love Netherlands
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Dear Netherlands,
There’s an old saying in the Netherlands: God made the world, but the Dutch made Holland. Drive across Zeeland, past the Delta Works, and you start to understand. Or stand at Kinderdijk at sunrise, when the windmills catch the first light and the canals are mirror-flat, and you can feel 800 years of stubbornness built into the landscape.
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Kasteel Twickel via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0 nl)
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In today’s email:
- The Achterhoek
- At The Café — Café De Doffer — Amsterdam’s All-Day Neighbourhood Bar
- 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 — Discover Your Gelderland Roots: Heritage, Diaspora, and Family History
- Dutch Food You Will Love — Oliebollen — The Dutch Doughnut of New Year’s Eve
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The Achterhoek
👉 Read the full story
The Achterhoek In the quiet eastern corner of Gelderland, a landscape of moated castles, book-filled market squares and ancient hedgerow country has been waiting patiently for you to arrive. An introduction to The Achterhoek There is a particular quality of quiet in the Achterhoek that takes a little time to recognise for what it is. Not emptiness — the fields and lanes are full of life — but depth. The eastern edge of Gelderland sits in a fold of the Netherlands that most visitors sail straight past on their way to Arnhem or the Veluwe, and the region has, over centuries, arranged itself into something that asks to be met on its own terms: slowly, by bicycle, preferably with no particular agenda beyond the next bend in an oak-lined lane. Achterhoek translates literally as “back corner,” and the name has stuck precisely because it tells the truth. This is the far country, and it is…
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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 Doffer — Amsterdam’s All-Day Neighbourhood Bar
Café De Doffer on the Runstraat in the Nine Streets has been a daily-life café since 1900. It’s open from morning coffee through to late-night last-call, and you’ll see the same faces drift through every part of the day — students in the morning, freelancers at lunch, locals after work, regulars after midnight. The kitchen does a small menu of well-cooked Dutch comfort food, the wine list is short and good, and the back room has a pool table that has been there since the seventies. It’s the closest thing the Nine Streets has to a living room.
👉 Visit the café
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Around The Web
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From Love Netherlands
Gelderland is the largest province in the Netherlands. It stretches from the Rhine and Waal rivers in the south to the great Veluwe forests in the heart of the country. For millions of people worldwide, it is also the place their ancestors called home. If you have Dutch roots, Gelderland Dutch heritage may be part of your story. Gelderland sent emigrants across the globe. Dutch-American families in Michigan and Iowa often trace their roots here.…
👉 Read the full story
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Photo via Love Netherlands
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Dutch Food You Will Love
Oliebollen — The Dutch Doughnut of New Year’s Eve
Oliebollen are round Dutch doughnuts, usually with raisins or currants tucked inside, deep-fried until the outside is crisp and the inside is light and yeasty, then dredged in icing sugar. Every Dutch town has at least one oliebollenkraam — a temporary stall — that appears in late December and disappears on 1 January. They’re the food of New Year’s Eve. The annual AD newspaper test of the country’s best stalls is a national event in itself, and Dutch families will drive an hour to buy a bag of warm oliebollen from whichever vendor wins.
👉 Read the full story
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