Maastricht, the Limburg Hills, the Veluwe and the Hanseatic IJssel
Seven days through the Netherlands that most visitors never see: not the flat polders of the postcards but a country of cathedral towns, chalk hills, heather and old river trade. The loop leaves Utrecht beneath its Dom tower, crosses the great rivers to the moated castle of Loevestein and spends the evening in ’s-Hertogenbosch, where hidden canals run under the houses. The white village of Thorn leads down the Maas to Maastricht, a city of Roman bridges, bookshop churches and caves cut into Sint-Pietersberg. Beyond it the land finally rises: timber-framed farms in the Geul valley, the ruined castle of Valkenburg and the Three-Country Point on the highest hill of the European Netherlands. The road then follows the river north to Nijmegen and into the Veluwe, where Van Goghs hang in a forest museum and white bicycles wait for anyone, before the brick Hanseatic towns of Zutphen, Deventer and Kampen close the circle. Fast chargers are never far away, and many hotels add a socket for the night.
