After leaving Amsterdam, we took our Brompton folding bikes deep into the historic, star-shaped fortress town of Naarden! In this episode, we explore what it’s actually like to cycle inside a real life walled community, put the Dutch infrastructure to the test by mixing with traffic, and run a fascinating supermarket experiment comparing an 18 minute walk to a 5 minute cycle on the Bromptons. But as we travel south… disaster strikes.
13 Comments
Sailed all the way from Newcastle to the Netherlands with our folding bikes to explore this incredible star fortress town! If you love unique travel adventures and real active travel infrastructure, smash that subscribe button. The journey continues south next week, and things get chaotic!
Sailed all the way from Newcastle to the Netherlands with our folding bikes to explore this incredible star fortress town! If you love unique travel adventures and real active travel infrastructure, smash that subscribe button. The journey continues south next week, and things get chaotic!
as you are going to Roozendaal there is a small town similar to Naarden more or less on your way, it is called Willemstad. Also worth a visit.
Nice vlog!
Try if you can to stop at the town of Oudenbosch. It is not far from Roosendaal by bike (29 minutes) or train (6 minutes) It has an beautiful Basilica made of wood that looks like the Vatican. It has an interesting history.
Enjoy your stay in the Netherlands
I live pretty near Naarden, and cycled through it many times, a few days ago as a matter of fact. I love the place, and there are very nice cycling routes around it. My son has recently been loving to cycle along with me on some relaxing evening rides and we have scanned through lots more places recently, like Weesp, Muiden, Laren, Bussum. The area is mostly called 'Het Gooi' and is a bit of a posh area in the Netherlands, I suppose this explains the many pristine oldtimer cars and beautifully kept houses.
Just for your information, a drone above built-up area is punishable with a fine of 450 Euro in the Netherlands, foreigners must pay immediately.
Naarden-Vesting is definitely worth a visit! In the past, I often took a walk around the entire fortress with my son, who was 10 at the time, along the outside of the water. Beautiful and very peaceful.
I do have to get used to your nice Scottish accent a bit, though.
Have lots of fun in the Netherlands and thanks for your video.
Next time visit the inside of the church; it's famous for its ceiling.
Oh wow, Roosendaal? That's around the corner from me (I'm from Bergen op Zoom, we have a museum called Markiezenhof, which is where the marquis used to live)
Hope you had a lovely stay!
My usual walk to my nearest supermarket is about 20 to 25 minutes, 8 minutes by bike, one of my neighbours, who I’ve known all my life constantly comments ‘Why don’t you take the car’ she’s extremely anti-cycling
I run/bike through Naarden now and again, and I actually tend to feel like there's too many cars – too much free reign to drive wherever and not enough pedestrianised streets especially around cafes/restaurants. I moved to NL about 3 years ago from the UK so I guess that just shoes how much my baseline for car precense has changed
Important thing to note:
The fortress town of Naarden is NOT a standalone fortress. But rather it's part of a bigger defensive line.
The Dutch water line was a defensive line built in the 17th century. It consisted of fortified towns and inundation fields, these fields could be flooded with about 1,5 metres of water. Too deep to wade through, too shallow for boats.
The defensive line was updated in the late 19th century with new forts and gun batteries, many can still be visited today and are touristic sights.
All to protect the province of Holland and it's major cities like Amsterdam, which has it's own separate defensive line (Stelling van Amsterdam).
The defensive line was one of the reasons why the Netherlands remained neutral during WW1.
A interesting part of Dutch history and a nice landscape to cycle through.