Drentsche Aa National Park

The Drentsche Aa is a small stream that was never straightened, and that is the whole point of the park built around it. Instead of a canal between concrete banks, the water wanders through hay meadows, alder carr and old oak stands, with villages built around green commons at the edges and heath on the higher ground at Balloerveld. It is one of the least altered brook valley systems left in this part of Europe, and it is farmed as well as protected, so you walk through working fields as often as reserves. Burial chambers built of glacial boulders, thousands of years old, stand near several of the villages. There is no gate and no ticket, only a network of paths and cycle routes.

What you actually see

• The unstraightened brook - a narrow stream meandering through meadow and wood, the reason the park exists.
• Balloerveld - open heath and old cart tracks on the higher sandy ground above the valley.
• Stone burial chambers - prehistoric tombs of glacial boulders standing near Anloo, Loon and Balloo.
• Village greens - the brink villages of oak-shaded commons that the valley farming built.

When to go

April to October, with May and June best for meadow flowers and birdsong and late August for flowering heath on Balloerveld. Autumn colour in the oak and beech is worth a day. Paths in the valley bottom can be wet after rain at any time of year, and winter reduces the landscape to bare grey.

Honest expectations

This is a subtle landscape with no single viewpoint, no dramatic feature and no visitor hub, so it rewards a map and a slow half day rather than a quick look. The stream itself is small and often hidden behind vegetation. Wet meadows mean midges in summer and mud in spring. Reserves are mixed with private farmland, so routes wander and signposting varies.

Nearby

Assen sits at the western edge, and the city of Groningen is half an hour north.