Hoge Veluwe National Park

The Hoge Veluwe is the Netherlands doing landscape on its own terms: no mountains, no coast, just 5,400 hectares of heath, shifting sand dunes and pine woodland that were bought as a private hunting estate in the 1900s and handed to the nation. It is best known for two things that sound unrelated and work perfectly together. The first is the free white bicycles, hundreds of them, left unlocked at the gates and at points across the park for anyone to ride and abandon at the next rack. The second is the Kröller-Müller Museum in the middle of the park, which holds one of the largest Van Gogh collections in the world alongside a sculpture garden set among the trees. The combination, cycling through heather to a room of Van Goghs, is unlike anything else in Europe.

History

Anton Kröller and his wife Helene Kröller-Müller set up the estate privately in 1909, and until 1923 it was under construction, with wildlife brought in, fences built and the St Hubertus hunting lodge designed by Hendrik Petrus Berlage (Wikipedia, De Hoge Veluwe National Park).

What you'll find

• The white bicycles - free to use, available at the gates and hubs, the intended way to cross the park.
• Kröller-Müller Museum - a major Van Gogh collection plus modern art, with a large sculpture garden outside.
• The drifting sands - open sand dunes in the middle of the park, an unexpected desert-like landscape.
• Wildlife hides - red deer, roe deer, wild boar and mouflon, best at dawn and dusk from the observation points.

When to go

Late August into September when the heather flowers purple across the open ground, and September into October for the red deer rut. Spring is quiet and green; winter is bare but the museum runs all year.

Things to know

Park entry and the museum are separate tickets and together they are not cheap for a family. The park is large and genuinely needs a bicycle rather than a walk, and the free white bikes are basic single-speed machines with no children's seats. Wildlife appears at dawn and dusk, which conflicts with normal opening hours, so daytime sightings are luck.

Nearby

Arnhem holds the Netherlands Open Air Museum; the wider Veluwe stretches across Gelderland.

Key facts