This past weekend I traveled to Giethoorn (HEET-horn), my final new destination on this adventure. Since my time in Giethoorn was quite limited, I’ll also keep this blog on the shorter side (you’re welcome, Hannah).
Giethoorn is a small town located in the province of Overijssel. This was the 7th unique Dutch province I’ve visited, so I’ve now seen over half of them (there are 12 total). For you sticklers about the definition of “visited,” I’ve spent at least one night in all 7 provinces. Even though Giethoorn is very small (less than 3,000 residents), it is a hub for tourists because of the city’s picturesque canals. Apparently the town is known as the “Venice of The Netherlands,” which is close to Amsterdam’s nickname as the “Venice of the North.” A cursory look at Wikipedia reveals that the distinction is not very unique.
Anyway, as the name implies, Giethoorn is best traversed on water. Many of the homes in town are only accessible by foot (via bridges) or by small boat. I wanted to visit Giethoorn because of that unique feature, the pretty photos I had seen online, and because The Amazing Race filmed part of an episode there a few years back (if I don’t get on the show, at least I can visit some of the same places).
For most people, getting to Giethoorn may not be the easiest. If you don’t want to take a day trip on a tour bus, you’ll have to take a train to Meppel and then catch an infrequent bus service that drops you off far from the main canal. Luckily for me, my farm was only a 1.5 hr bike ride away from Giethoorn, so I didn’t have to worry about public transit (I chose this farm partly because I knew Giethoorn was in biking distance). I also got lucky since it barely rained over my short trip, perfect for a trip where I would be spending a lot of time outside.
Once I got to Giethoorn I checked into my hostel (The Black Sheep Hostel), dropped off my backpack, and then headed out to find lunch.
I quickly realized that the many warnings I had heard about the large amount of tourists were true. While my hostel on the southern terminus of the main canal was relatively quiet, as I walked further north the small sidewalk got more and more crowded. I had to walk around people taking selfies in the middle of the path, unaware of the other people (and cyclists of course) trying to get by. The funny part about Giethoorn was that this traffic jam wasn’t only happening on the sidewalk, but also in the canal. Whoever thought it was a good idea to allow tourists to rent and drive boats in the canal definitely did not have the best foresight. Many parts of the canal just looked like one big game of bumper boats, with some stuck in the canal perpendicular to the flow of traffic (kinda like that boat in the Suez Canal).
I had a good (though maybe overpriced) lunch, with big portions. It was good to get some food after my bike ride, especially because I was heading back out to exercise again.
I rented a kayak to explore the surrounding area, which sounded more fun (and cheaper) than renting a boat. I initially started out in a decent size lake next to Giethoorn, but then for some stupid reason thought it’d be fun to kayak through the crowded canal I had just walked by. I did well at first navigating around boats, but as traffic started to form, I grew impatient and ducked back out through a side canal to the main lake. I kayaked around 2 small islands, and then followed the perimeter of the lake.
About halfway through my journey, I crossed paths with a relative of my sworn enemy. Only this time, they were not in a pair, but watching me by the dozens. Thankfully, this was a relative of my enemy, not the enemy itself. I stayed my distance and nobody got hurt. Of course I’m talking about running into swans, who don’t look too different from my old geese nemeses.
After the close encounter, I finished my loop (checking out a few side paths) and headed back to the boathouse where I started. My route is visible on Strava here.
I then went back to the hostel for a while to chill, enjoy the wifi, and write my King’s Day blog. I was hoping to sit outside in one of the hammocks, but the light rain wasn’t great for me computer. Of course once the rain stopped, the mosquitoes came out, so I really didn’t have much of a change to just sit outside.
I went to dinner at a restaurant next to the hostel, and I only have one notable thing to share (besides the fact that I ordered a salad hoping it’d be small, but it ended up being the biggest salad ever – which I guess matched my beer).
Ok so the notable thing was that last Saturday was Remembrance Day in The Netherlands. The holiday is a time to remember all of the people who were lost during WWII. My dinner relates to the holiday because everyone in the country stops what they are doing at 8pm for a two minute moment of silence. I really wasn’t paying too much attention initially (I was nearing the end of a good book – Fractal Noise by Christopher Paolini), but then I noticed the restaurant had gone eerily silent. The music stopped playing, people stopped eating, and nobody moved or talked. Thankfully I remembered what was going on (I had been told earlier in the day that it would happen), so I stopped what I was doing and joined the silence. Once it was over, one man clapped (nobody joined him) and Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence” played. It was definitely a powerful moment, and it’s even more powerful when realizing that everyone in the country is doing the same thing. I know Israel does something similar for Yom Hazikaron and Yom Hashoah. I’m sure other countries also have similar practices, but I don’t think anything in the US measures to the same standard (cars even stop on highways in both countries during the minutes of silence).
The next day, I woke up early since someone’s alarm in the hostel kept going off, and I guess they were incapable of rolling over and hitting snooze. I was quick to wake up anyway, since I slept poorly because someone snored the whole night. I had a few issues with snoring people at other hostels; the key is to fall asleep first, otherwise you are screwed.
I walked up and down the length of the entire canal, and was surprised by how few people I saw, especially compared with the throngs from the previous day. Since most people just visit for the day, I guess it made sense that not many people were out and about at 8 am. The amount of people walking around didn’t really increase by 10 am, the time when most shops and cafes finally opened. I visited a grocery store for some snacks, and decided I would just bike back to the farm soon. The main/only thing to do in Giethoorn is explore on the water, and I felt satisfied with my kayak experience. I didn’t really feel like taking another trip on the water before riding my bike back. So around 11 am I was back on my bike, and by 1 pm I was back on the farm.
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