Our 4-day cruise in Holland
For many people, visiting Holland begins and ends with a city break to Amsterdam. Yet there’s so much more to this country than the capital.
This is a land of fluorescent flower fields, windmill-crowned countryside, medieval cities, UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and dune-clad coasts.
One of the best ways to experience everything the Netherlands has to offer is to see it by boat. More than 6,000 kilometers of navigable waterways braid their way around the country, passing through places car and rail travelers never get to see.
Sarah Holt and her husband Paul took a four-day trip around the rivers, canals and lakes of the north Holland and Utrecht regions, with Le Boat, to get a taste for what slow travel through The Netherlands can really be like.
Day 1: Arrival at the Le Boat base in Vinkeveen – check-in from 3pm
A cup of coffee and a glass of cold water await us at the Le Boat base in Vinkeveen at check-in. Once we’re settled on the sofa, bags unloaded from the taxi, we begin the pre-trip briefing.
After a thorough safety explanation, we’re handed a selection of maps and anticipation for the trip starts to rise. Fully unfolded, each one is arm span-wide, and they’re already highlighted with possible routes.
As first-timers to Le Boat, we hadn’t done much route planning pre-trip, hoping to be guided and inspired by the more experienced team at base. So, our expert talks us through the options for a four-day trip, tracing a pen along the maps’ blue sinews as he explains.
We’re also shown the Waterkaarten app. The boating world’s equivalent of Google Maps, it estimates boating time between locations, highlights the positions of locks and bridges, and – using the specifications you input about your boat – shows which routes are off-limits to you.
Deciding to keep things manageable, boating for a couple of hours each morning to move on to a new destination, we pencil in our itinerary…
Driving lesson
Onboard our Horizon 2 we’re given a tour of the controls; throttle, thrusters, control panel and so on.
Then we’re up onto the top deck to take it for a test drive. Our instructor backs it out of the berth for us, and we take control on the open water of Vinkeveen lake.
Compared to a car, it feels sensitive. We zig zag for a while, but our instructor reassures us that this is how all newbies start off.
Returning to base, it’s time to reverse into the berth. There’s a bit of adjusting before we get the angles just right, but we ease into the mooring soon enough.
The first evening
As we’re already quite well into the afternoon when we finish our briefings, we plan to stay in Vinkeveen overnight.
We take the boat for our first solo spin around the lake. It’s mid-October and a cool spell has settled on The Netherlands, so there are more moorhens on the water than people. A few fishermen punt past, but the water skiers of summer are absent, giving us more room to practice maneuvring.
It takes us a couple of hours to master the boat. Once we start steering by looking ahead rather than at the bow and getting a feel for the rudder we begin to get into our stride.
Moored back up at base again, we make our way to the nearby Harbour Club for a drink.
All low-lighting, leather, and velvet, it’s a polished place and the perfect spot to cheers to the start of the trip.
Returning to the Horizon just as the sun is starting to set, we make our way to the top deck and watch as the sky turns the colour of the watermelon mai tai I’ve just had at the bar.
Daylight extinguished, we catch a taxi into Vinkeveen village for dinner with a recommendation to visit Restaurant de Schans (which can also be reached by bike from the Le Boat base).
The menu isn’t typically Dutch, but it doesn’t disappoint. We share a board of freshly baked bread and garlic butter before tucking into tournedos served with Jakarta sauce.
Day 2
The bridge and lock on the way out of Vinkeveen open at 9am, so there’s no jumpstart to the day. To the sound of the kettle whistling on the gas hob, we prepare a simple breakfast of crusty bread, cold meats, and cheeses, bought after last night’s dinner at the Albert Heijn grocery store in Vinkeveen.
Once ready, we drift gently towards the bridge out of Vinkeveen Lake and pause a few minutes for it to be lifted. Then we sail under and meet the lockkeeper who helps us loop our ropes and chats to us about our travel plans as the water raises us up to the level of the River Angstel.
On the banks of the Angstel, the polders stretch for miles. These low-lying peat meadows are so flat they look ironed.
After half an hour, we reach the junction for the Amsterdam-Rijnkanaal. Having heard this is one of the busiest canals in The Netherlands, I’d been half expecting it to look like a busy motorway, but it’s clear, so we sail out into it.
There are some large barges on the Rijnkanaal, but they’re slow and predictable. Some of the boats do create wakes that reach the boat as waves, but you soon get used to them.
Within another 90 minutes, we reach the turning into Weesp.
Boating into Weesp is an uplifting experience. A single lockkeeper is responsible for operating all three of the bridges on the way into the city centre and he cycles beside us between stops, like a character from a wholesome children’s story.
We called ahead to let WSV Vecht marina know we’d be arriving, so there’s someone waiting for us when we putter up. He helps use secure the ropes, shows us how the shore power works, and talks to us about football before retiring to his own boat across the marina for a well-earned beer.
From our mooring, we can see the sails of Weesp’s windmill softly spinning.
Moored just in time for lunch, we head out to explore Weesp. Rows of gabled houses lead us into the centre.
At a café called Bobby’s Blue, we choose a table next to the window and order homemade lasagne. We watch the city’s cyclists biking over the canal bridges as we eat, their baskets full of groceries, plants, pets and even children.
The afternoon hours are consumed by exploring the city’s cobbled streets, sipping a beer at Wispe Brewery, which occupies a tall spired Gothic church, and browsing the shops, before we return to our boat by torchlight.
A bit about life on the water
Boating days force you to change down a few gears. Cruising at six to 10 kilometers an hour, the scenery scrolls past slowly.
Water splashes up around the bow of your boat in soft chevrons as you inch past peat meadows, carved up by dykes.
Cows and sheep graze. The sails of wooden windmills spiral in the distance. Fishermen sit patiently on the water’s edge with nodding rods. Dog walkers wave from riverside walkways.
From the water, I see details I would never have had time to spot in a car like hand-painted signs for pick-your-own strawberry farms and – one day – a heron, standing wide-winged and twiggy-legged – on the river bank.
Day 3: Weesp to Utrecht
Our route today takes us south along the Vecht to Utrecht, passing more expanses of Dutch countryside in uncountable shades of green during our 4 hours of cruising. Utrecht can also be reach from Weesp over the Amsterdam Rijnkanaal in 2 hours but we decided to take the more scenic route.
In Utrecht, cyclists stream through the streets in shoals and, in the centre, gabled houses line the canals like a mini Amsterdam.
After losing track of time in the independent jewellery, vintage clothing, and gift shops of the old town, we find a table in the open-air seating space of Graaf Floris and enjoy a plate of bitterballen (see our Typical Dutch foods and where to try them article) and a glass of wine.
We people-watch – my favourite sight being a man wearing wooden clogs with his work suit – and listen to the bells of St Martin’s Cathedral peeling nearby.
Utrecht is a place that really purrs in the late afternoon and evening. Al fresco seating areas spill out onto its squares and their tables are almost entirely full, even in mid-October.
We get back to the boat late this evening, having done a little crawl of Utrecht’s bars. There’s an eclectic bar scene in this city. One moment, we’re sipping wine amongst the art deco interiors of Vino wine bar. The next we’re playing pinball at Grand Café Lebowski, where the décor includes a life-sized stuffed giraffe.
A bit about life onboard
Measuring 11.5 metres long by 4.2 metres wide, the Horizon 2 has two cabins, both with ensuite bathrooms, a kitchen dining area (that can be turned into a third sleeping space), and a pontoon on the lower deck. On the upper deck, meanwhile, there’s a steering area and a roomy sundeck.
The bathrooms on Horizon 2 are more comfortable than I had expected. There are cupboards for toiletries, the shower is tall and wider than elbow width, and the water is so hot it steams up the mirrors in moments.
The kitchen is well-equipped, too. There’s an oven, hob, microwave, kettle, and a decent-sized fridge. I was pleased to find wine glasses and a bottle opener in the drawers to boot.
Top tip:
Take a few trash bags away with you and pre-purchase an eco-cleaning pack (see Extras) to help keep the kitchen clean.
After dark, the boat feels like a chrysalis. Once you close the curtains you’re cocooned inside.
We play music, talk, and have a final glass of wine before bed every night.
Our main cabin, meanwhile, is nest-like. The mattress is big enough for two people to starfish on, and while it’s not soundproofed, it always seems quiet.
Day 4: Breukelen
Unless you request a late check-out, Le Boat vessels have to be returned by 9am on the final day of your trip. So, we decide to spend a final afternoon in Breukelen (an hour cruise from Utrecht) before making our way back to base.
Brooklyn, New York, was named after this Dutch town, just under 10 kilometers from Vinkeveen, but the two don’t have too much in common. While the former is the city that never sleeps, the latter has a pleasingly drowsier pace.
Breukelen is a place for waterside walks, slow shopping (be sure to call in at Zuivelland speciality cheese shop) and lazy lunching – we call in at Brasserie Expresso for cheese-filled pancakes.
Cycle trails spindle away from the city. The Forts Cycle Route, for example, is a 52-kilometer circular route that traces its way past Maarsen Plassen, through Maarssen town, and back into Breukelen, taking in points on the Dutch Water Defence Lines Unesco World Heritage Site.
Back in Vinkeveen before dark, after an hour back on the water, we hunker down in the way that has become second nature to us during our boating adventure.
Re-rolling out the maps on the dining table, we wonder which of the remaining 6,000 kilometers of waterways we’ll try next.
Ready to book your own boating holiday in Holland?
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