West of Utrecht, where the old city fades into meadows and a newly built suburb called Leidsche Rijn, a flat green belt of polder and ditches runs between the villages of Vleuten, Veldhuizen and De Meern. The low land here was part of a defence system that worked by water, the Dutch Waterline, and the Groot Zandveld label refers to this country.
The Dutch worked out centuries ago that the best defence of the western provinces was to open sluices and flood the fields to a depth of about thirty centimetres, too shallow for boats and too deep for soldiers and guns. The New Dutch Waterline, built in the nineteenth century, ran from the Zuiderzee to the Rhine, with a chain of forts, dykes and sluices that could be closed to flood the land in front of Utrecht and Amsterdam. Many of the forts survive, with earth ramparts, moats and brick casemates, and some are now museums or nature reserves. The line was already out of date by the First World War, but it was last used in 1940, and the system is inscribed with the Defence Line of Amsterdam on the UNESCO list.
Near Vleuten lies Castle De Haar, a magnificent neo-Gothic palace rebuilt in the 1890s by the architect Pierre Cuypers, who also designed the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, for the Baron van Zuylen, whose wife was a Rothschild. It stands in the village of Haarzuilens, with moats, turrets and a large park, and it is a fairy-tale building. Slot Zuylen, on the Vecht, is a smaller and older castle that is also open to visitors.
The riding here is gentle and flat, on dyke roads and narrow lanes along ditches, with farms, cows and cyclists. Speed limits are low, there are many speed cameras, and many roads are used by cyclists, who have priority. The landscape is wide and open, with long skies, strong winds and sudden showers. Early morning mist over the polder in spring and autumn is lovely, while winter days can be raw and foggy.
Vleuten, with seven thousand people, has fuel, supermarkets and cafes, and Utrecht is only a few minutes away, with every kind of service. Order a coffee with a piece of apple pie, and watch the cyclists go by.