Tour de Pays-Bas Day 11: Amersfoort to Utrecht

It’s the last day of our 11-day bike tour through the Netherlands and we’re a little choked up as we push off to leave Amersfoort and head to our final destination of Utrecht. It’s a short ride — as we planned it for our last day — so we take our time. But we’re still on a bit of a mission today.

Amersfoort - Utrecht: 23.9 km
Google Maps time: 76 minutes   Our time: 2 hrs 50 min (including a stop in the sand dunes!)

When we first started making intercity trips by bicycle on our honeymoon 11 years ago, we did a daytrip between Utrecht and Amersfoort. With no smartphone, we used a map and followed bike signs. Sometimes we’d get a bit lost and on that particular trip we somehow stumbled upon an amazing area of sand dunes that seemed to appear from out of nowhere. We marvelled at them as we rode through and promised ourselves we’d visit again. But that was 11 years ago and we can’t quite remember where we were! But with Google Maps, surely we can find our way there again?

Turns out it’s a bit trickier than we thought, as the dunes are spaced out throughout the area, with some being more accessible than others. We opt for finding de Lange Duinen (the Long Dunes) in Soest. Google Maps gets confused easily in forested areas but the trees finally give way and magically reveal a huge sandy area of about 500 hectares in size. Unlike the dunes we ran into 11 years ago, we have to dismount from our bikes to navigate the area. It kind of feels like you're walking on another planet and we spend a long time trekking across the dunes and marvelling at the vast sandy plains combined with stunning plant life, dramatic landscapes and the intense calm and quiet of the area. We feel both overwhelmed and completely at peace during our half-hour visit there.

We could easily spend a couple more hours among the dunes but our bikes are due back at 4 p.m. in Utrecht and we have to keep moving. The rest of the trip is a breeze though, with a dedicated bike lane between the two cities that has been open since 2022. The doorfietsroute F28 is about 20 km long, with much of it running through forests and completely isolated from car traffic. It’s not only scenic, but it’s also a fast way to get between the two cities. And with little headwind against us, we’re making good time.

(OK, just one more dramatic dune photo!) With this bike route we’re treated to another unique entry to the city that first takes us through the Utrecht Science Park, part of the Utrecht University campus. Our last visit to Utrecht two and a half years ago was a bit of a disappointment. We came in by train and really just limited ourselves to the city centre. With its maze of cobblestone streets all coming together to a canal lined with restaurants, the Oudegracht neighbourhood is definitely beautiful. But it’s also very busy and touristy. (Also, we’ll hear from many locals to avoid the restaurants in this area!)

This time we enter the city via the northeast, through residential areas lined with mostly independent shops. For all the grandeur of the older inner cities, it’s often just as inspiring to visit the outer streets, where life seems a little more “normal.” There’s a nice buzz in the air with the busyness of post-work Friday afternoon rush hour.

Justin challenges Alison to a race for the final 200 metres to the hotel/finish line to determine who will win the yellow jersey, but by the time we’ve argued about whether that’s stupid or not we’re already there. Finished!

We check in and have an hour until our room is ready so we grab a quick bite to eat. An authentic-looking ramen restaurant is our immediate go-to and absolute heaven after 10 days of eating bread for lunch! By the time we’re done, we can head to our room, unpack and then we get a notification that our bike pickup is 15 minutes away. So we hit the bikes for one last time — light as a feather now with our empty pannier bags and no backpack — to meet with the folks from Cycle Classic Tours. While we did receive a generous discount on the bike rentals from them, we would go with them again at full price anytime. The bikes were superb,  communication about pickup and drop-off was simple and clear, and they were just generally well-organized and great to deal with. If you’re inspired to try a Dutch cycling adventure of your own, we highly recommend them.

We feel a little sad and out of sorts walking back into the city without our bikes. It’s been an amazing 11 days and it will be strange to break the routine of waking up the next day to cycle to another destination. But of course, we’re also ecstatic and proud of our accomplishment of biking more than 400 km and it’s time to celebrate. We already know our first stop: Belgisch Biercafé Olivier Utrecht. … Although café is hardly how you’d now describe this beautiful drinking establishment that used to be a church! It’s certainly a majestic place with a very impressive beer selection that you should definitely visit if you’ve never been. But the charm has faded for us a bit since we were here on our honeymoon and it was still fairly new. Now, it’s a big tourist destination and we see lots of groups stream through for photos who don’t even stop to have a drink.

We decide to check out some more humble haunts and can highly recommend stopping by: Drie Dorstige Herten Café (the “Three Thirsty Deer Café”), an awesome proeflokaal/tasting room run by brother and sister Menno en Kayleigh de Bruin, who provide excellent service and are super knowledgeable on all things beer; De Morgenster, a bruin café on de Oudegracht where you also have the option of sitting along the canal but further away from all the tourists; Café Jan de Winter, a small cozy bruin café that IS in the super touristy part of the Oudegracht yet somehow manages to be gezellig and a welcome retreat from the crowds even when it’s busy inside or on the terrace); and our personal favourite by a narrow margin, Café DeRat (see below).

Utrecht is hopping on this Friday night with terraces completely packed and people spilling out of restaurants and bars with drinks in hand all in joyous spirits. It’s a scene we wish infrastructure (and unnecessarily restrictive laws) would allow for more back home. … But we also realize we’re far too old and tired to join in these festivities that will go on late into the night and are happy to be sheltered from the noise in our hotel room for a good night’s sleep. It’s been a long trip and we need the rest.

CAFE OF THE DAY: Café DeRat

We mentioned the many great watering holes we visited in Utrecht (well, we had to celebrate our last day of biking! And Utrecht is the fourth largest city in the Netherlands so there are a lot to choose from!). But what made Café DeRat stand out for us was its simplicity, communal vibe and, of course, gezellig atmosphere. It’s all things a good bruin café should be. But it’s also uniquely tucked away from the busier streets in a downtown residential neighbourhood. So it’s home to a lot of locals, which is a nice respite from the many tourists that flock to Utrecht. We immediately felt at home in this tiny bar full of charm, character and a cute cat.

WHAT THE AMATEURS LEARNED: We wake up on what would be Day 12 of our bike trip but, of course, we don’t have the bikes anymore and our Tour de Pays-Bas is officially over. It’s a strange feeling as we set out on foot to Utrecht Centraal Station to get the train to Rotterdam to first visit Justin’s mom before we move on to Amsterdam. While we have to admit we wouldn’t quite be up for a 60 km bike ride to Rotterdam (and then another 70 km ride from Rotterdam to Amsterdam!) today, and it does feel like a tremendous luxury to be travelling by train after all that cycling, it’s amazing how attached we got to our daily routine these past 11 days. At one point on the train ride, we both spot a couple about our age cycling together and looking like they’re off on their own adventure. We smile as the train speeds by them. We kinda wish we were in their shoes again. We already miss it.

We’ve already mentioned that perhaps a better way to have done this trip would be to spend two nights in each destination, giving us more time to appreciate the town or city we’re in, be able to rest up a bit and have more time to write down our thoughts for these travel newsletters. But we don’t really have any regrets about doing it the way we did. Going over our notes and expanding on them days after the fact has also been rewarding in being able to relive the journey and appreciate what happened with a bit of distance and do some additional research on things that we were simply too tired or oblivious to while being in the moment. It’s helped shape what was in many ways a blur of cycling into a cohesive journey. We really appreciate you following along with us and hope these newsletters have been a little bit entertaining and inspiring for you to read.

For detailed writeups on all the places we visited, there’s always Lonely Planet, Wikipedia, etc. What we were most interested in doing was covering as much ground in the Netherlands by bike as we could in 11 days while always having interesting places to stay en route. We think this is a uniquely Dutch experience to be able to do that (and no Dutch tourism board has sponsored us to say this!) and an opportunity available to almost everyone (especially with e-bikes being so popular now). Of all of our trips to the Netherlands, this one has certainly brought us closest to appreciating just what a great country it is.