Why this ride
Out of Leiden, one way: 52 km, roughly 1 h 07 in the saddle. The stops in between: Noordwijk, Lisse and Keukenhof. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Dutch Flower Route
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 52 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 1 h 07
- Journey
- One way; return travel is separate
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Scenic road chapters
Dutch Flower Route
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 22 km this is Dutch Flower Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 22 km
- Named road
- Dutch Flower Route
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Leiden
Leiden is a university town built on canals, and it is one of the most agreeable small cities in the Netherlands. The Old Rhine, split into several branches, runs through the centre, and the old merchant houses, narrow bridges and windmills give it a charm that is lived in rather than preserved. The university, founded in 1575 as a reward for the city's resistance to the Spanish siege the year before, is the oldest in the country, and its students keep the streets busy on bicycles. Rembrandt was born here in 1606, and the Pilgrim Fathers lived here for years before sailing to America. About 120,000 people live in the city, so fuel, food and everything else are easy to find.
Read the complete Leiden write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Leiden is where the day begins. Next is Noordwijk.
2. Noordwijk
On the Dutch coast the sea and the sand come with a smell of salt and frying fish, and Noordwijk has plenty of both. It is a seaside resort between Katwijk and Zandvoort, with a long wide beach, a boulevard, and a line of dunes standing between the town and the bulb fields inland. The town is also home to ESTEC, the main technical centre of the European Space Agency, which makes it a rare place where the beach crowd shares the bakery queue with rocket engineers. The Dutch coast here is flat, windy and bright, and the light has the clean, washed quality that painters came for centuries ago.
Read the complete Noordwijk write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Noordwijk comes up 19 km in. Next is Lisse.
3. Lisse
Lisse is the heart of the Bollenstreek, the bulb region, a belt of sandy land between Leiden and Haarlem where tulips, daffodils and hyacinths are grown by the million. In April the fields stretch away in stripes of red, yellow, pink and white, so strongly coloured that they seem painted. The sandy soil, a little way inland from the dunes, drains well and suits the bulbs, which is why this strip of land has been planted for four centuries. The story is a famous one: the botanist Carolus Clusius planted some of the first tulips in the Netherlands at Leiden in the 1590s, and within a few decades the flower had set off the speculative frenzy now called tulip mania.
Read the complete Lisse write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
39 km in you reach Lisse. Next is Keukenhof.
4. Keukenhof
Keukenhof is a garden of about thirty-two hectares, and for around eight weeks in spring it holds several million flower bulbs in bloom, which makes it the biggest show of its kind in the world. The name means kitchen garden, and it is old: the land was once part of the hunting grounds and herb gardens of Countess Jacoba of Bavaria in the fifteenth century, supplying her castle with produce. In the nineteenth century a landscape architect designed the park around the manor house in an English style, and in 1949 the bulb growers of the region came together to turn it into a permanent showcase for their trade. They have kept it going ever since.
Read the complete Keukenhof write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Keukenhof, late in the day. Next is Haarlem.
5. Haarlem
Haarlem is the pretty one among the big Dutch towns, a city of about a hundred and fifty thousand people that keeps its old centre in good order, with a huge market square dominated by the Grote Kerk, the great church of St Bavo. The organ inside, built in the 1730s, was played by Handel and by the ten-year-old Mozart. The Frans Hals Museum holds the paintings of the great portraitist who lived and worked here in the seventeenth century, and the Teylers Museum, founded in 1778, is the oldest museum in the Netherlands, a cabinet of fossils, instruments and drawings in an elegant building. Haarlem sits on the Spaarne river, a short distance from the dunes and the North Sea.
Read the complete Haarlem write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Finish at Haarlem. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Leiden to Noordwijk
Leiden → Noordwijk is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Noordwijk to Lisse
Noordwijk → Lisse is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Keukenhof to Haarlem
Keukenhof → Haarlem is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.