This trip is built upon my years-long desire to finally visit both the Hoge Veluwe National Park (largest in NL, meaning probably comparable in size to Manhattan), and the Kröller-Müller museum which sits inside it. The museum is most famous for its large collection of Van Gogh painting as well as other beloved 20th century painters. I’d known it has a sculpture garden, but not quite how park-like and wonderful the garden is. It’s spawned a new series for me, because I spent today surrounded by nature both in the museum grounds looking at sculpture, and outside on my bike ride before the museum opened. More from the inside (and outside) later, but here a some introductory tastes of the museum’s sculpture park.
Even before I got into the Hoge Veluwe park and its renowned Kröller Müller museum this afternoon, I enjoyed the loveliest 15km or so bike ride through forest and field with nary a car in view, en route from the train station nearest to the geographic center of NL with easy onward paths to Otterlo. I’ve now spent three hours in the fantastic museum and its magnificent extensive sculpture park, and am very glad indeed that I can go back both tomorrow and Tuesday. An excellent start to Paul’s low carbon footprint countryside adventure. If things go as planned, I’ll explore the park and various surrounding towns – two more overnight destinations to go once I leave here on Wednesday – entirely by foot and bike, til next Sunday at which point I’ll be on train back to Amsterdam. Two additional points of note: it’s very agricultural and lots of horses here, which I’m guessing is why the main paths through the woods are sandy and unsealed, with only the narrower bike path sealed. The motorized farm vehicles can navigate sand, and it’s kinder on the horses’ hooves, I assume. Also: yes, there are hills! 🙂
Last shots from my early-July stay in Heusden for a work week, with one shot from a bike ride I did across the Maas in Geldersland, the church from the town I believe was Spijk below right.
After that week I spent working-remote from Heusden in early July, I biked (as the good, wannabe-more-Dutch person that I am) with my luggage in the front basket on back to Den Bosch for a lovely lunch w/the friend who’d initiated that whole house-swap thingy then the bike-on-train back to A’dam. This pair of what I believe to be white storks was hunting food in the fields between our bike path and the Maas / Meuse, so I photographed them a few different times as they and I were moving the same eastward direction.
(so much world, so little time....) 