This past weekend, I traveled to the city of Arnhem. Originally, I wanted to go to the bigger city of Utrecht (only about an hour west of the farm), but the limited hostels in the city were all booked up. In Arnhem, an hour east of the farm, there was still a hostel with availability for the coming week. Trying to embrace spontaneity, I went ahead and booked that hostel for one night. I didn’t enter Arnhem with no knowledge of the city though; I spent a few hours doing my normal research to learn more about the city’s history and top things to do.
On Saturday morning, I walked 25 min to the closest bus stop, rode 25 min to Tiel, and then took a 35 minute direct train into Arnhem.
Fun note about the bus ride – we passed a Wipeout! themed water park – I’d love to go but doubt it will happen given the frequent rain and the park’s requirement for you to bring a group of 10 people (costing over 500 euros total). Arnhem’s central train station also had some pretty cool architecture. I still think Rotterdam’s ranks higher, but Arnhem’s is equally unique. Once you walk down from the platform and out of the pay gates, you enter a large amorphous atrium that has lots of curved lines, no hard edges. Maybe I’ll start a train-station ranking page somewhere here, though I likely need to visit a few more before it can happen. It also does sound kinda lame on second thought, so let me know if this is something you would be interested in.
In Arnhem, I took a bus to my hostel, dropped off my bag, and then walked back into the city. Even though the walk back took 40 min, I chose to do it to explore along the way. A quick note – this was really the only hostel in town, so its location outside the city center was not a choice I had. The first thing you’ll notice in Arnhem that differentiates it from other Dutch towns (or at least the ones I have visited so far) is its topography. While most of the Netherlands is synonymous with being flat (think polders), Arnhem actually has some decent size hills. Just walking from the hostel to the city center required quite a bit of stairs. Not necessarily a bad thing, but primarily just made me realize how long it had been since I climbed up stairs while outside.
On the walk back to the city, I passed through Sonsbeek park, a large green space that straddles the city center. Sonsbeek has a great diversity of forested and green areas, and many activities to take part in. I saw people sipping drinks by a cafe, lounging on a field while looking down (very strange to say in the Netherlands) at the city skyline, or watching the deer/elk/some animal hang out within their large fenced enclosure.
In the city center, my first order of business was to get lunch, as it was getting close to 1pm. After walking around for a bit looking for something to eat, I found a great falafel place (FLFL) where I had a wrap. I didn’t have any formal plans in place next, so I continued to wander the city center (which wasn’t too big). I walked into the big church in town, which I guess is most known for its glass skybox near the top where you can look down at the city below you (similar to the one in the Willis tower). I didn’t feel like paying to walk up into a glass box, so I just passed through.
Next I stumbled into a street market, where both food and clothes were being sold. This one was a lot more casual and less busy than the one I encountered in Antwerp. I was surprised/intrigued/happy to see that the dominant type of stand in the market were those selling cheese. I did not buy any cheese at the market, though I did buy something else. King’s Day is coming up in the Netherlands (April 27), and the day-long party celebration of the King’s birthday usually requires everyone celebrating to wear orange in national pride (why orange is explained here). I knew I would be going to Amsterdam to celebrate King’s Day, but did not have any orange to wear. I found a fun orange shirt for 5 euros in the market; stay tuned for a post after April 27th to see the shirt (trust me it’s worth it).
After buying my shirt, I headed down to the waterfront of the Nederrijn – one of the main branches of the Rhine river as it flows into the Atlantic. This portion of the Rhine is particularly famous for a battle that took place in WWII – aptly named the Battle of Arnhem. In a small waterfront museum, the history of the battle (that partially took place on the bridge seen behind the museum) is told via infographics and displays featuring soldiers. Something I had not known, but quickly became apparent in this museum, was that the Nazis had won the Battle of Arnhem. Despite taking place in September 1944 (a few months after D-Day, and when the tide of the war had swung in the Allies’ direction), the British and Polish (did not expect to hear their name) troops were overwhelmed by Nazi forces. A more complete history of the war can be read about here.
My next stop downtown was to a public library, which of course had some cool architecture. After resting here for a bit, I made the trek back up to the hostel to check in (I had arrived too early to check in earlier).
The rest of my day was pretty relaxed. I headed back down to get dinner at a döner kebab shop, my favorite fast food in Europe. I went to see a movie afterwards, as I was curious what the Dutch movie-viewing experience was like. I went to see Civil War (an A24 film, not a Marvel movie), an American movie about a realistic near future where the US enters a politically driven civil war. I’ll comment more on the movie in a minute; let me describe the experience first. When I entered the theater and went to buy some popcorn (as is necessary for all movie-viewing experiences), I was greeted by an entirely self-serve operation. This streamlined process featured rows of popcorn buckets resting inside heating glass cases, and the usual candy and drink accompaniments evenly laid out across the rest of the room. This made it so much faster to grab snacks that if I had to stand and watch some underpaid, acne-covered high schooler shovel popcorn into a bucket for me. I didn’t take any photos of this, but you can probably imagine well enough what it looked like.
Now back to the movie itself: Civil War was way more gory than I expected. Without any spoilers, expect a lot of graphic killing to happen. Not just gruesome murders, but also emotional ones. The movie follows the story of a seasoned war photographer and a young photographer hopeful racing to Washington DC to record the President as the Capitol falls. The story was more powerful than I expected, but so was the bloodshed. Worst part was that I felt awkward eating my popcorn through the gory parts, as most people seemed too disgusted to continue (I couldn’t let some good, but expensive, popcorn go to waste).
After the movie, it was also impressive to see how everyone brought their trash with them and correctly sorted them into the proper bins. This is probably not a Dutch-specific custom, but more of an everyone-but-the-US custom.
I took the bus back to my hostel, and headed to bed to get ready for an early-ish start the next day. One of the other people in the room, a dutchman (not much older than me) named Ash, really wanted to chat, so we talked for a little bit. He was very eager to share his views on American politics to me; I was less eager to hear them. We also talked about my travels to the Netherlands; he recommended I visit his hometown of The Hague, which I may do at some point. You can’t really visit any of the EU buildings in the city (which is what I know the city for), but he said it’s still worth visiting for its city center and green space. It’s also known as the home of Vermeer’s Girl with the Pearl Earring, but I’m not sure if visiting the painting is reason enough to visit a city.
Now onto Day 2!
Sunday was a much busier day for me. It was also significantly colder than on Saturday (50 vs 75 degrees), but that would end up being a good thing for the activities I had planned. More importantly, it was great that it didn’t rain either day, especially when considering it has rained every single other day I’ve spent at Fruitweelde.
In the morning, I walked 15 min up to the Netherlands Open Air Museum. Along the way, I passed a blocked off road hosting a road cycling race. The morning session featured younger kids, while when I walked by later it featured much more intense adults.
The outdoor museum feels like a park, but contains historical buildings from across the Netherlands and has actors portraying the lives of the people who once occupied these homes. If anyone is familiar with the Skansen museum in Stockholm, this is exactly the same concept (but done a bit better I’d say).
The park had several areas that represented regions of the Netherlands, including a forest, and countryside, a fishing village, and a few more.
Reading about the history of small villages in the Netherlands was sort of interesting, but nothing really stood out to me. While there were people of all ages visiting the park, the ones who had the best time were definitely the little kids who could run and scream to their hearts’ content. It was also interesting to see that dogs were allowed in the park. This is great, but I didn’t expect it, especially since the miniature farms featured cows, sheep, goats and other typical farm animals. The dogs barked at each other more than the livestock though.
Some of the cool features of the park included the historic tram that you can ride around the park and the large windmill sitting in the center of the property. I tried to take some artsy photos by lying on the ground next to the tulips on the side of the windmill.
I ended up spending about 2.5 hours at the park, but could have easily been there for 4 hrs. Near the end of my visit, I grabbed an overpriced sandwich at the cafe, and visited the indoor museum displaying the Dutch canon. The Dutch canon contains the 50 most important pieces of Dutch history (people/events/etc) as determined by the government, and is taught to all students. I had to rush through the indoor museum to get to my next scheduled activity, but would have liked to visit longer. There seemed to be a game component where you could scan an ID to track your scores across historically relevant games – very similar to the oil rig activity I had done at the maritime museum in Rotterdam. In Dutch museums, the gamification of history seems to do a great job at finding the balance between teaching and engaging a younger audience.
The next activity I had to head out for was a mountain bike reservation I had made. A third party mountain bike rental service operated out of my hostel, which was one of the primary factors that led me to Arnhem and this hostel. The company’s owner, Reinout, was super happy to greet me and give me a bike. He was also excited to hear that I was from California, prompting him to show me his large collection of Marin Bikes (the company is headquartered in Marin in the SF Bay Area).
I was soon off, with my phone mounted on the bike and preplanned route on display. I was heading to the Veluwezoom National Park: I thought that a park with “zoom” in its name would be great for biking. The name did live up to the hype, with an extensive network of road and mountain cycling trails. I did have to climb a pretty steep hill to get into the park, but am proud to say I passed many Dutch road cyclists on the way up (don’t ask me how old they were).
The park had a great variety of landscapes, from savannas that seemed a world away from the Netherlands to thick forests that felt much more appropriate.
A very cool looking cafe was my main waypoint throughout the trip, and I stopped back there to buy more water and an ice cream during my ride.
The last time I had mountain biked was in Denmark during my study abroad. While Denmark and the Netherlands don’t have mountains, they do have a large base of people who love to ride bikes. I’m assuming that large base led to the establishment of great network of mountain biking trails in both countries, despite the lack of interesting terrain. The park featured a network of easy, intermediate, and advanced trails; I spent most of my time on the intermediate ones. These trail featured jumps, curved banks, and short, but steep inclines. I had a great time riding the trails; it’s a much more stimulating way to ride a bike versus the road cycling I’m accustomed too. I didn’t take too many pictures of the trails, since it was hard to stop while riding (I’d lose my momentum for the next incline, and wouldn’t want to get in the way of other single track riders), but I did take a few photos when I had to stop to pick up my phone that fell out of its case (don’t worry it’s fine).
On the way back towards the hostel, I made another stop at some woods near the Open Air Museum; I rode a really great, but more advanced, track there.
I’d love to ride a mountain bike again while in the Netherlands, and hope to ride again back in California (where there are real mountains of course).
After dropping the bike back off at the hostel, I entered a dramatic travel scenario again (referring to my journey from Antwerp to Fruitweelde as the first). It’s important to note that these dramatic scenarios were self-imposed – I would never have had to wait long for the next bus or train if I missed it. That being said, I loved the thrill of rushing to a bus or train to feel that I minimized my total travel time. For you haters who think it’s about the journey, not the destination, let me remind you that I had already made this journey once (from the farm to Arnhem), so there would be no reason to stop and smell the roses (or tulips).
After dropping off the bike and grabbing my bags, I realized the next bus left near the hostel in less than 10 minutes. I rushed over, and I flagged down the bus to stop as it approached the bus stop before I got there. It obliged, and I boarded. The driver was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying in his accented English. I soon realized what he said once the bus made an immediate U-turn: the bus was heading to the zoo, not the Central station.
I had boarded the correct bus, but it was heading in the wrong direction. I know I am not at fault here, since the bus showed up on the opposite side of the road as it was supposed to (hence the immediate U-turn once I got on the bus). I calculated that the detour to the zoo and back would only add an extra 10 minutes to my ride, reducing my layover at the central station from 15 min to only 5 min. If the bus didn’t run late, this would be fine, except for the fact that I planned on grabbing food at the station in the 15 min before my train arrived. I did remember that there was a grab and go café at the station (think vending machine for hamburgers), so I planned to run by there on my way to the platform.
Skipping ahead, everything worked out perfectly. I made it to the station with enough time to buy a burger and some croquettes (they were just ok, but enough to fill up my stomach after the bike ride) and run up to the platform and board the waiting train. I’d like to think the public transit Gods have been watching down on me during my trip, but it’s more likely that the Dutch public transportation infrastructure is just that good. Of course the one knock on Dutch trains is how expensive they are (the 35 min journey costed around $12).
I made my bus connection on time and got back to the farm around 7pm without any further issues. I wanted to go to the grocery store when I got back to stock up for the week, but all the nearby ones were closed. Turns out nearby stores are closed on Sundays because my farm is in the Dutch Bible Belt, who knew?
Logistic updates to conclude the post: I’m planning on staying at Fruitweelde until this Saturday, when the plan is to head to Utrecht for 2 nights. I don’t start on my 3rd farm until next Wednesday, so I need to figure out where I’ll spend Monday and Tuesday (The Hague is the leading idea right now). I also asked the next farm if I can start a few days earlier, waiting to hear a response.
The last couple of days have been very trying on the farm; the torrential spurts of rain and wind (from which we don’t get a break) have made it rough. I am trying to be resolute and intend on finishing my last few days here; you’ll learn more and see if that happens on my next post. (Don’t be too worried, I am fine, I just need to create suspense between blog posts).
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