Pieterpad

Toos Goorhuis-Tjalsma and Bertje Jens worked out in the late 1970s that you could walk the length of the Netherlands on quiet paths if someone found the route, and spent years doing it; the Pieterpad opened in stages from 1983, running about five hundred kilometres from Pieterburen on the Groningen Wadden coast to the Sint-Pietersberg above Maastricht, and it is by a wide margin the most walked long-distance path in the country. It is divided into twenty-six stages of roughly fifteen to twenty-five kilometres, each starting and ending somewhere with public transport and accommodation, so it is normally walked in weekends and holidays over months or years rather than in one go - and doing it in pieces is the standard practice rather than a compromise. The route crosses the clay, the peat, the sand grounds, the river country and finally the loess hills, which is the whole country in cross-section.

What you actually see

• Five hundred kilometres end to end - Wadden dyke to the Limburg hills.
• Twenty-six stages - each linked by public transport, walked over months or years.
• The country in cross-section - clay, peat, sand, rivers and finally loess hills.
• Devised by two walkers - Goorhuis-Tjalsma and Jens, who found the route in the 1970s.

When to go

April to October. Several weeks, walked in stages.

Honest expectations

It is flat for four hundred kilometres and the interest is cumulative rather than dramatic. Accommodation on some stages books ahead. Waymarking is good but a guide is standard. Very busy on fine weekends.

Nearby

Pieterburen is the northern end; the Sint-Pietersberg above Maastricht is the southern.