Author: Love Netherlands
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What Is King’s Day in the Netherlands and Why Does Everyone Wear Orange?
King’s Day in the Netherlands: why millions wear orange, what happens on 27 April, and how to celebrate — plus get weekly stories free in our newsletter.
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The Dutch Canal City That Hid Its Cafés Below the Waterline
Utrecht’s Oude Gracht hides café cellars below the waterline. Most visitors walk straight past them — get Netherlands stories free in our newsletter.
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The Dutch Fishing Town That Seduced Europe’s Most Famous Painters
The Dutch fishing harbour of Volendam became Europe’s most painted village. Here is why — plus get weekly Netherlands stories free in our newsletter.
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What Is Wadlopen? The Dutch Tradition of Walking the Seabed
What is wadlopen? Every summer, thousands walk across the Wadden Sea seabed at low tide to reach remote Wadden Islands. Here’s what to know — plus get weekly Netherlands stories free in our newsletter.
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Cycling the Dutch Tulip Fields: What the Tour Groups Never See
Cycle the Bollenstreek in April and see Dutch tulip fields that stretch to the horizon — the Bollenstreek at peak bloom, no queues — plus get weekly Netherlands stories free in our newsletter.
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The Dutch Words That Reveal How the Netherlands Really Lives
These five Dutch words have no English translation — and each one reveals something true about how the Dutch think, feel, and live — plus get weekly Netherlands stories free in our newsletter.
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The Jordaan — The Amsterdam Neighbourhood Tourists Walk Straight Past
Image: Shutterstock Most first-time visitors to Amsterdam walk right through the Jordaan without realising they’re in it. They’re looking for the Anne Frank House, or the Red Light District, or a coffee shop — and the Jordaan, which is quieter and smaller and doesn’t announce itself, slides past in a blur of crooked gables and…
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Giethoorn — The Dutch Village With No Roads
Image: Shutterstock There’s a village in the north of the Netherlands where nobody has ever driven to the shop for milk. Not because it’s remote, exactly — it’s only a two-hour drive from Amsterdam — but because Giethoorn was built on water, and most of its houses can only be reached by boat or by…
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The Quiet Art of Dutch Cheese — And Why You Should Skip the Tourist Shops
Image: Wolf-photography / Shutterstock Dutch cheese has a problem, and the problem is the tourist shops. Walk down any street in central Amsterdam and you’ll see them — bright, cheerful, windows stacked with wheels of yellow Gouda and red-waxed Edam, labelled with cute Dutch phrases and marketed aggressively at visitors. Most of what they sell…
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Why Kinderdijk Has 19 Windmills (And Why They Still Matter)
Image: Shutterstock A row of 19 windmills stands in a line along a canal south-east of Rotterdam, and together they look like the most Dutch thing on earth. Most visitors come, take a photograph, and leave thinking “well, that was lovely.” Almost nobody asks the obvious question: why are there 19 of them in a…
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A Day in Maastricht — The Dutch City That Feels Like Belgium
Image: Shutterstock Maastricht is technically in the Netherlands, but it doesn’t quite feel like it. Tucked into the far south of the country, pressed up against Belgium on one side and Germany on the other, it has more in common with Liège or Cologne than with Amsterdam. The architecture is older, the cafés more French,…
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Keukenhof in April — What to Expect from the World’s Biggest Flower Garden
Image: Shutterstock For eight weeks every year, a garden on the edge of a small Dutch town becomes the most photographed place on earth. Seven million tulips, 700 varieties, laid out across 32 hectares of formal beds and woodland paths. It’s called Keukenhof, and if you can time a Netherlands trip to see it, you…