Concrete is not usually romantic, but a Dutch group shelter manages it. Type P was a standard design of bunker built in the 1930s along the New Dutch Water Line, the old defensive belt that ran in an arc around Utrecht, Amsterdam and the middle of the country. Each shelter was a small, low, rectangular box of reinforced concrete with a flat roof and a narrow door, designed to protect a squad of soldiers from artillery and aircraft while they waited for the real fighting to start. Hundreds were built, and when you find one, usually half hidden in grass or trees, it looks like a stout, silent animal.
The idea of the Water Line was typically Dutch. The country had learned over centuries that its best defence was water, and from the early nineteenth century engineers prepared a chain of forts and sluices that could flood a wide strip of land to a depth of about half a metre, too deep for troops to walk through and too shallow for boats. The shelters of the 1930s were a modernisation, reflecting the lessons of the First World War. In May 1940, though, the German army came by air and by tank, and the line did not hold for long. The whole system is now a World Heritage site, listed with the Defence Line of Amsterdam.
You reach this part of the country by gentle, tidy roads. The area east of Utrecht, near De Uithof and the Kromme Rijn, is a patchwork of meadows, hedges, small woods and country houses, with long straight cycle paths and a few lanes shared with bikes. Speed limits are low, often thirty or sixty, and cyclists are frequent and fast, so ride carefully. Weekends bring crowds of walkers and cyclists, and the quietest times are early morning or late evening. In winter the light is low, and fog often sits in the hollows.
De Uithof and Utrecht both lie within a couple of kilometres, so petrol, coffee and meals are easy to find. A walk along the old defence lines, with their embankments and ditches, is a nice break from the saddle. Note that some of the shelters are on private land or in nature reserves, so keep to paths and respect signs.