Utrechtse Heuvelrug

Wednesday I took a day off work and went to a large forested area called the Utrechtse Heuvelrug. I had never even heard of it, but I found out about it online while looking for a nature area to go to after deciding that it would be too much trouble to get to the Hoge Veluwe. It's amazingly close to Utrecht and has miles and miles of walking paths through forest. My photos from my walk are here.

I took a bus along the bottom edge of the park on a road that passed through a couple of small towns and went past many unbelievable homes. It was quite pretty. From the bus stop I dove straight into the forest. I only had a vague idea of which paths to follow since I didn't feel like shelling out 7 eur for a map of the entire park, but after about half an hour I came across a picnic area with a map, so I plotted a route to take. (And depended a bit on modern technology: I took a photo of the map so that I could refer back to it on my camera.) Aside from the bubbles of people there were at places like the picnic area or later at a cafe, I hardly saw anyone all day. It was wonderfully quiet. Though unfortunately there were almost always reminders that I was hardly in a wilderness: I had to go pretty far into the park, and on the other side of a slight hill, to finally stop hearing distant traffic.



About halfway through my walk, there was a viewing tower you could climb. The view from the top was amazing. I don't think I've ever seen so much green all together in this country. It was hard to imagine I was in Holland. Until I heard a far-off ambulance siren....

Not far after the tower there was a cafe with a large terrace overlooking a sandy, meadowy area. I'd already been dreaming of pancakes, so I thought I could do with a later lunch/early dinner. The food energized me enough for me to carry on in a circle back to where I had started, instead of ending earlier on a different road. I highly recommend the Heuvelrug for someone wanting a day trip to somewhere different and unknown. Granted, I was lucky enough to be there on a weekday, but still, it's a big enough park to find a quiet corner and get lost in nature for a bit.