15 Days in Belgium &
the Netherlands

We woke up rested and ready to explore. Over the course of the day, Kari and I logged over 26,000 steps wandering Amsterdam's streets, bridges, and neighborhoods — and barely scratched the surface.

Late in the day we made our way to the Anne Frank House. The building was under renovation so we didn't go inside, but we spent time taking it all in from outside — the narrow canal house facade, the quiet street, the weight of what happened behind those walls. Immediately next door stands the Westerkerk, a stunning 17th-century church whose tower is one of the tallest in Amsterdam. Anne Frank wrote in her diary that she could hear the Westerkerk's bells from the hiding annex.

From there we let the city lead us. Amsterdam's famous canal ring is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it's easy to understand why — every bridge offers a new perspective, every street opens up onto another narrow waterway lined with houseboats and leaning gabled townhouses. Those lean, by the way, isn't just charming decay — it's deliberate. The buildings were designed to lean forward so furniture hoisted by the hooks at the top wouldn't scrape the facade on the way up through the narrow windows. Some lean so dramatically they have visible gaps between them.

We made a point to visit the Centraal Station area and find the IJboulevard bike parking garage — a massive multi-level structure that holds over 7,000 bikes. For people from the US, protected bike lanes exist in even the most bike-friendly American cities, but they're still the exception. In Amsterdam, they're everywhere — and bikes don't just have their own lanes, they often have the right of way. Cars, trams, and pedestrians all work around cyclists. It's not just infrastructure. It's a philosophy. It's how biking should be, and it gave us a real preview of what our week of riding through the Netherlands was going to feel like.

The evening wound down with a walk along the Amstel River at golden hour — the Magere Brug (Skinny Bridge) glowing in the distance, its lights reflected in the still water. Amsterdam at dusk is one of those things that's hard to describe. You just have to be there.

Day Highlights

• Anne Frank House exterior — under renovation, but still moving to stand outside
• Westerkerk — the church Anne Frank could hear from the annex
• 26,000+ steps through the canal ring and beyond
• The IJboulevard bike garage — 7,000 bikes on three levels
• Amsterdam's bike culture: this is how biking should be
• The leaning gabled houses — architectural quirk with a practical purpose
• Golden hour on the Amstel River — Magere Brug at dusk

Getting to Bruges required a bit of logistics: rent the bikes in Amsterdam, load them onto the train, ride south. What we didn't anticipate was the luxury of having an entire dedicated bike carriage to ourselves — just our two rentabike.nl bikes, panniers, and three hours of Dutch and Belgian countryside rolling past the windows. Anyone who's wrestled bikes onto packed Italian or Austrian trains will appreciate how civilized this felt.

We arrived in Bruges in the afternoon and biked straight from the train station to our accommodations. Right from those first pedal strokes through the old city, it was clear this place was something different. The cobblestone streets, the medieval facades, the way the light caught the brick — it had the quality of a film set, except completely real. Some streets were so quiet and perfectly preserved that it felt almost surreal, like riding through a living postcard from the Middle Ages.

The first day we explored entirely on foot. Belgium is famous for a handful of things — beer, chocolate, and medieval architecture chief among them — and Bruges delivers on all three within about a two-block radius. The Markt, the city's central square, is anchored by the 13th-century Belfry — 83 meters of Gothic tower that has watched over the city for 800 years. At golden hour the whole square glows amber. Horse-drawn carriages clatter across the cobblestones, and somehow it doesn't feel like a tourist gimmick. In Bruges, it just feels like Tuesday.

The second day we explored by bicycle, weaving through the side streets and riding the full perimeter of the old city along its canal ring. Bruges' waterways are quieter and more intimate than Amsterdam's — no houseboats, far fewer tour boats, just medieval brick reflected in still dark water and swans drifting past stone arch bridges. The Rozenhoedkaai — where the canal bends past step-gabled medieval buildings with the Belfry rising behind — is probably the most-photographed view in Belgium, and it earns every photo. Riding the perimeter gave us a completely different perspective on the city's scale and beauty.

At night, Bruges transforms entirely. The facades are lit from below, the canal water goes glassy, and the whole city takes on a glow that seems almost theatrical. We stayed out late, stopping for a Tongerlo dark abbey ale at an outdoor café. Beer #3 of the goal of 15. Belgium was already making a strong case.

Highlights

• Private bike carriage on the Amsterdam–Bruges train — civilized travel
• Arriving in Bruges by bike from the station — first impressions
• Day 1 on foot: Markt, Belfry, Rozenhoedkaai, horse-drawn carriages
• Day 2 by bike: side streets and the full canal perimeter
• Belgian beer and chocolate — field research, obviously
• Tongerlo dark abbey ale — Beer #3 of the goal of 15
• Bruges at night — medieval spires lit up and mirrored in still water

After a few days in Bruges, it was finally time to start our bike tour. Our plan wasn't to rush back to Amsterdam or take the most direct route — we wanted to meander through towns and countryside at our own pace over the course of a week or so. Armed with bikes rented in Amsterdam (and carried south by train), panniers packed with just the necessities and a couple changes of clothes, and a cycling app called Fietsknoop for route planning, we set off.

This was the only day we had fully mapped out in advance. Everything else we'd figure out as we went.

Our first stop was Sluis — a small Dutch border town and our official crossing out of Belgium. As it turns out, the word "sluis" means lock or sluice gate in Dutch, used to control water flow in canals and rivers. My family name — Vanderslice — derives from "Van der Sluis," meaning "from the sluice." While my ancestors weren't from this exact town (they emigrated from the Netherlands to America in the late 1690s, and the name eventually became Vanderslice), we couldn't help feeling a connection standing next to that sign.

We stopped at a café in Sluis and were happily talked into trying their famous Belgian waffles. It was one of the best decisions of the trip. The hot chocolate was like drinking a liquid Belgian candy bar. Kari generously let Mike have a few bites of the waffle, unlike past riding partners that rhyme with "dug" who won't share their chocolate.

After Sluis we wound through spectacular farm fields — including one enormous field of brilliant orange flowers that seemed to go on forever. The route then took us along the North Sea coast toward a ferry crossing. From the upper deck we watched a pilot vessel named Procyon head out to guide a large ship into port, and spotted a fantastic 3D pavement mural of an octopus bursting through the brickwork right at the ferry landing.

The day wrapped up in Middelburg, the historic capital of Zeeland, with its beautiful canal system, a rowing crew gliding through the golden-hour water, and a stay at Hotel Het Princenjagt — a beautifully restored historic building dating to 1747. No roughing it on this trip.

Day 1 Highlights

• First border crossing into the Netherlands at Sluis
• Van der Sluis — the Vanderslice family name connection
• Belgian waffles and liquid chocolate in Sluis
• Miles of spectacular orange flower fields
• North Sea ferry crossing with the pilots vessel Procyon
• 3D octopus pavement art at the ferry landing
• Kasteel Donker (11% ABV) — Beer #3 of the trip
• Overnight at Hotel Het Princenjagt, Anno 1747, Middelburg

Over dinner the night before, we pulled up a map and started sketching a route. No hard plan — just a rough line north from Middelburg toward our target for the night: Zierikzee. Instead of taking the direct road, we decided to veer east first to the town of Veere. See what we did there.

The detour was absolutely worth it. Veere is one of those Dutch towns that feels almost too perfectly preserved — a small, quiet harbor village that once punched well above its weight in European trade. Today it's largely a sailing and tourist town, but the architecture tells the whole story. We wandered past the old church and a windmill, walked the harbor, and took our time soaking in a place that most people driving between cities never see.

From Veere we worked our way toward the Oosterscheldekering — the Eastern Scheldt Storm Surge Barrier, the largest of the Delta Works engineering projects. We'd seen it on the map and knew it was going to be a highlight. It did not disappoint.

What we didn't fully anticipate was the wind. Crossing the barrier on bikes, fully exposed, with a strong headwind pushing straight back at us — it was one of the more physically demanding stretches of the whole trip. The barrier is nearly 9 kilometers long, all of it open to the North Sea. There's nowhere to hide. Heads down, grinding into the wind, occasionally glancing up at the engineering marvel we were crossing — massive concrete piers, steel gates, open water on both sides — it was spectacular and punishing in equal measure.

One reason we'd chosen this particular route to Zierikzee was the promise of a tailwind once we turned and rode along the water on the far side. Someone had done their meteorological homework. After the punishment of the crossing, the wind swung around and pushed us south along the coast — one of those stretches of riding where you feel like you could go forever.

We ducked into Café-Rest. 'De Heerenkeet' to get out of the wind and grab lunch before the final push. A warm meal, a moment out of the elements, and a chance to appreciate just how much ground we'd covered. From there it was a comfortable, mostly tailwind cruise into Zierikzee.

Zierikzee itself was a wonderful surprise — another beautifully preserved medieval port town, its inner harbor lined with historic sailing barges and step-gabled merchant houses. We walked the harbor in the evening, found a spot for dinner, and agreed it had been a genuinely great day on the bike.

Day 2 Highlights

• Detour to Veere — a perfectly preserved medieval trading port
• Veere's Grote Kerk and the Scottish wool trade connection
• Crossing the Oosterscheldekering — one of the great engineering feats of the 20th century
• Brutal headwinds across the barrier — heads down, grinding through it
• Tailwind reward along the water — the riding we came for
• Lunch at Café-Rest. 'De Heerenkeet' — shelter from the storm
• Overnight in Zierikzee — founded 1248, still stunning

We woke up in Zierikzee to actual sunshine. After two days of overcast skies and relentless wind, seeing blue sky through the curtains felt like a gift. We packed up, rolled the bikes out, and immediately encountered the day's first reward: a beautiful working windmill right on the dike road out of town. Hard to leave, but we had ground to cover.

Day 3 was the day the Netherlands really opened up. The route north through Zeeland and into the Hoeksche Waard took us through some of the most purely agricultural landscape of the whole trip — flat, geometric, immaculately maintained. Canals running alongside fields. Tree-lined lanes tunneling through the farmland. Furrowed rows stretching so perfectly to the horizon that they looked computer-generated. We understood for the first time what it means to ride on land that was once underwater.

Lunch was a sunny stop at a town square terrace — the kind of Dutch café scene that makes you want to cancel your afternoon plans. We didn't, but we lingered longer than we should have. The bikes needed a rest anyway.

We arrived in Klaaswaal in the early afternoon, which left time to actually explore. It's a small, tidy Dutch town — quiet on a Saturday, but with a local energy to it. We walked the streets, stumbled across a peaceful cemetery with unusual ornamental grass growing between the graves, and eventually found ourselves watching a local football match. No plan, just stumbled in. It felt like exactly the kind of thing you can only do when you're not in a hurry.

Dinner was the highlight: Eetcafé Hoekschewaard, an all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant with a twist — you order each course from a tablet at your table, and the food keeps coming until you say stop. We biked there. We biked back. We ordered several rounds. Eating your way through a tablet-ordered Chinese feast after 40 miles on a bike is, we can confirm, an excellent way to spend a Saturday evening.

We stayed the night in a rental house just outside of town — a modern place perched right on the edge of the polder with a view across the fields that seemed to go on forever. As the sun went down, crepuscular rays fanned out across the flat horizon in a way that made the whole day feel like it had been building toward exactly that moment.

Day 3 Highlights

• Windmill on the dike road out of Zierikzee — the Netherlands delivering
• Tree-lined country lanes through the Zeeland polder farmland
• Riding below sea level on reclaimed land — the whole Delta Works context clicked
• Lunch on a sunny town square terrace
• Exploring Klaaswaal on foot — cemetery, streets, a local football match
• Dinner at Eetcafé Hoekschewaard — tablet-ordered all-you-can-eat, biked there like true Dutch people
• Rental house with an unbeatable polder view and a sunset to match