Oct 01, 2026
|
Keukenhof Gardens: Plan Your Visit
Discover the world’s largest flower garden with insider tips on timing, tickets, and beating the crowds.
|
|
Love Netherlands
|
|
Dear Netherlands,
The Dutch have a word — gezellig — that doesn’t translate. It’s the feeling of a candle on a wet Tuesday. It’s a bar full of people who’ve known each other since school. It’s the brown café where the owner remembers your order and the rain outside makes the windows glow. You can’t chase it. You can only notice when it finds you.
|
|
Was this forwarded to you? Subscribe free and never miss an edition →
|
|
If the daily newsletter brings you closer to the Netherlands, our Sunday Premium Edition takes you deeper into it. Every Sunday you’ll receive travel deep dives, curated itineraries, regional stories, and hidden gems you won’t find anywhere else.
Upgrade for less than the price of a pint and see the Netherlands in a completely new way.
|
Photo via Love Netherlands
|
In today’s email:
- Keukenhof Gardens, Netherlands: The Complete Visitor’s Guide (2026)
- At The Café — Café Papeneiland — The Café on the Corner Bill Clinton Loved
- Around The Web — The Love Netherlands Guide № 006: Gezelligheid, Discover Your Groningen Roots: Heritage, Diaspora, and Family History, The Love Netherlands Guide № 005: Dutch Cycling Culture + more
- From Love Netherlands — The Dutch-American Homecoming: From New York to Old Holland
- Dutch Food You Will Love — Kroket — The Older, Stranger Cousin of Bitterballen
|
Keukenhof Gardens, Netherlands: The Complete Visitor’s Guide (2026)
👉 Read the full story
Few places in the world put on a spring show like Keukenhof Gardens, Netherlands . Every year, more than seven million flowering bulbs burst into colour across 32 hectares of landscaped grounds near the town of Lisse in South Holland. Tulips, hyacinths, daffodils and narcissi fill the beds from late March to mid-May. Visitors come from over 50 countries to walk the paths and stand before the iconic windmill. There is simply nothing else like it. Love the Netherlands? Join our free newsletter for hidden Dutch gems → inlovewithnetherlands.com/subscribe This guide covers the best dates to visit, how to get there from Amsterdam, what to see inside, and how to combine Keukenhof with the surrounding bulb fields and nearby towns. What Makes Keukenhof Special Keukenhof opened to the public in 1950. It began as a showcase where Dutch flower growers displayed their latest bulb varieties. Over the…
👉 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.
|
|
“Want deep dives into the Netherlands every Sunday? Our Premium readers already have their next edition waiting.”
|
At The Café
Café Papeneiland — The Café on the Corner Bill Clinton Loved
Café Papeneiland sits at the corner of the Prinsengracht and the Brouwersgracht, in a 17th-century building so charmingly crooked that the Delft tiles inside lean slightly to one side. It’s been a café since 1642. Bill Clinton stopped in once, ate a slice of apple pie, and the café has never quite let it go — there’s a small framed photo behind the bar. The apple pie really is the order: thick, warm, just enough cinnamon, served with whipped cream that doesn’t come from a can. Sit by the window upstairs and watch the canal boats turn the corner below.
👉 Visit the café
|
Around The Web
|
From Love Netherlands
You land at Schiphol and something strange happens. The flat landscape outside the window looks familiar. The windmill on the horizon matches the painting your grandparents kept in their hallway. You know this place. Your family left it 150 years ago, but you know it. Around 4.5 million Americans claim Dutch ancestry. Most know their family came from the Netherlands. Far fewer have ever stood in the town their great-great-grandparents left…
👉 Read the full story
|
Photo via Love Netherlands
|
Dutch Food You Will Love
Kroket — The Older, Stranger Cousin of Bitterballen
A kroket is a finger-shaped roll of crumbed and deep-fried beef ragout — the same filling as bitterballen, but in a single satisfying portion the size of a thick chip. You eat it slid into a soft white roll with a smear of mustard, called a broodje kroket, and it’s the Dutch lunch counter’s defining order. The most famous come from automat-style FEBO walls in Amsterdam, where you slot a few coins in and pull a hot kroket out of a glass-fronted cabinet. There’s no shame in it — half the city has eaten one before a tram home.
👉 Read the full story
|
|
Know Someone Who Loves the Netherlands?
If you’re enjoying this letter, the best thing you could do is forward it to one friend who’d love the Netherlands too. This newsletter grows by word of mouth alone — every single subscriber came from someone sending it to someone else. Thank you for being one of the first.
|
|
Our daily newsletter is free and always will be. But for less than the price of a pint, you can upgrade to our Sunday Premium Edition, which gives you access to our travel deep dives, curated itineraries, and regional stories. Consider buying us a stroopwafel — it’s the Dutch way to say thank you.
|
Also From Our Family
Love Ireland too? Over 64,000 readers wake up each morning to the Love Ireland newsletter — loveireland.substack.com
Or Scotland? Join 43,000 Scotland lovers — lovescotland.substack.com
|
|
Ever thought about actually moving to the Netherlands? Watch this →
|
|
You’re reading Love Netherlands — a free letter about canal towns, hidden villages, and Dutch stories, delivered Monday to Friday.
inlovewithnetherlands.com ·
Unsubscribe
© 2026 Love Netherlands · Part of the Love To Visit LLC family
|
