The park covers an area of 5500 hectares (around 14000 acres): woodland, moor/heather land and sand dunes. Wildlife abounds: wild boar, mouflon, deer, fox and numerous birds. Within the park are 40 km of biking, walking and riding (horse) trails. The art museum lies roughly in the middle.
I won't bore you with the details about the acquisition of the land and art, but suffice to say that one Helen Kroeller-Muller, the daughter of a German industrialist and the wife of a wealthy Dutchman, was a woman of incredible intelligence and taste. Before its acquisition, the land was largely a wasteland. The forested area is a little more than 100 years old and in its entirety planted by this incredible family. Today the forest covers 50% of the park. When biking the area, we encountered centennial beech forests. Like those in New Zealand, they are my favorite. Massive elegant trees with lateral branching (like the branching of dogwoods) and, in this late Spring, covered with light lime green leaves. Occasionally a European beech with its burgundy leaves stands alone. The floor of the forest is covered in dry rust colored leaves--a stunning contrast to the lime green. The compressed gravel bike paths are line with straight columns of trees---it feels like a living cathedral.
After the beech forest, you enter one that is fragrant with hemlock and pine--largely Scots pine with an understory of snowberry bushes that reminded me of the area around Bend. The trees give way to open fields of tawny bunch grass and massive ancient pin oak trees and a drier environment. Then you enter a windswept moorland covered with heather, contorted juniper trees and distant hills covered in pines. The sand dunes are largely in the southern part of the park.
Once the car is parked and you pass the tollgate, you pick up a free bike (one of hundreds). You must bike 15 minutes to reach the museum. There are, of course, other ways to reach the museum, but this is by far the most fun--it was our initial bike riding experience that took us through smaller versions of the land that was to come. The collection is contemporary with works of Van Gogh, Mondrian, Giacometti, Van Eyck, Redon, Picasso, Legers, Seurat and many more. The sculpture "garden" encompasses 25 hectares and is filled with works of Moore, Rodin, and many others. The grounds are stunningly beautiful and we were blessed with a cool sunny day. HKM collected more than 200 Van Gogh pieces--the largest private collection in the world.
After spending time here, we hopped on our bikes and rode and rode and rode. Reluctantly we left for Eindhoven, a last stop in the Netherlands before arriving in Belgium--Brugge (in French, Bruges). This has been a highlight of the trip--it far surpassed our hopes. We love the area and the fact that there are dedicated bike paths everywhere, even in the countryside. We'd like to return in the future and stay in the area just to bike.
Leaving the park we were thrown into the infamous Dutch traffic. It took us more time than planned to get to Eindhoven where we stayed in a hotel next to the freeway frequented by a number of Russian and British blue collar workers from a nearby company. They made it unpleasant for most everyone with their loud drunkenness (which began around 10AM). We were glad to leave and get on our way to Bruges. More about that later. . ....much love to you all.
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