Exloo is a small brink village on the eastern slope of the Hondsrug, the kind of place where the old farmhouses still face a central green shaded by huge oaks, and where a sheep herd with its shepherd is not a tourist display but simply part of the week. It is home to roughly fifteen hundred people and sits between forest to the west and the flat, open peat colonies to the east, so the village marks the edge between two quite different Drenthes. On a quiet morning the only sounds are wood pigeons and the tick of a cooling engine.
The name travels further than the village, thanks to what came out of the ground nearby. In the late nineteenth century peat cutters found a Bronze Age necklace in the bog close to Exloo, made of tin beads, amber and blue faience that may have come all the way from the Mediterranean, a reminder that the people of this damp corner of Europe were trading far wider than you might guess. Around the village there are also several hunebedden, the megalithic tombs of the region, tucked into the woods within a short walk of the road, and the open heath of the Exloërveld is good for a stroll among juniper and heather.
On the bike, the roads around Exloo are narrow, smooth and slow. Brick-paved lanes and bicycle-heavy routes run under rows of trees, there are speed bumps at every village entrance, and the curves are gentle, but the views open suddenly where the forest ends and the old peat fields begin, ruler-straight drainage canals running off to the horizon. It is a landscape that suits an unhurried ride at fifty or sixty, with the visor up. Late summer, when the heath turns purple, and autumn, when the beeches change colour, are the best times. Winter can be grey and damp, with slick leaves on the road.
For practical needs, Exloo has a small shop, a couple of places to eat and the kind of terrace on the brink where cyclists and walkers drink coffee in the sun; it is a pleasant pause rather than a service stop. Fuel is best found in Odoorn, just to the south, or in the Emmen area about ten kilometres away, which has stations, supermarkets and every service. If you are following the hunebed route, Exloo is a natural breather between Borger and Emmen.