Dutch Water Defence Lines and Utrecht-Limes road | Zandweg

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Dutch Water Defence Lines

   The Dutch had a clever idea for defending their heartland: instead of building walls, they would drown the approaches. The Dutch Water Defence Lines, a World Heritage site, consist of a long belt of land around Amsterdam and Utrecht that could be flooded deliberately in wartime, with water deep enough to stop soldiers on foot and wagons, but too shallow for boats. Forts, dikes, sluices and pumping stations controlled the water. The New Dutch Waterline, built in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, ran south-east of Amsterdam through the area around Maarssen and the Loosdrecht lakes, and it was mobilised during the First and Second World Wars, though aircraft and modern artillery had made it largely obsolete by then.

   Read the complete Dutch Water Defence Lines write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Dutch Water Defence Lines is where the day begins. Next is Bunnik-Vechten | Provincialeweg.

2. 2. Bunnik-Vechten | Provincialeweg

   A modern fort and a Roman one stand within a couple of kilometres of each other here, and both exist because of the same river. Vechten, on the Kromme Rijn just east of Utrecht, was the Roman fort of Fectio, one of the best-known sites on the Lower Germanic frontier. It lay at a point where the Rhine split, with the branch that became the Vecht heading north, and that made it a perfect depot. Soldiers, grain, and building stone all went through here, and archaeologists have pulled a remarkable amount out of the ground, including altars, bronze statuettes and the debris of a busy harbour.

   Read the complete Bunnik-Vechten | Provincialeweg write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Bunnik-Vechten | Provincialeweg comes up about 19 km into the recorded legs. Next is Utrecht-Limes road | Zandweg.

3. 3. Utrecht-Limes road | Zandweg

   Two thousand years ago the Rhine marked the northern edge of the Roman Empire here, and along its southern bank the army built a chain of forts, watchtowers and a road to link them. In the western suburbs of Utrecht, in the new district of Leidsche Rijn and the old village of De Meern, that road has been found again under the fields, a gravel and clay embankment with ditches either side, and part of it can be traced along the street called Zandweg. Nearby, at Castellum Hoge Woerd, the outline of a Roman fort has been rebuilt in a modern form, with a museum, a theatre and an observatory, and a flat-bottomed Roman river barge, found here in 1997 almost intact and complete with the cargo and personal belongings of its skipper, is on display. The Lower German Limes became a World Heritage site in 2021.

   Read the complete Utrecht-Limes road | Zandweg write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 36 km into the recorded legs you reach Utrecht-Limes road | Zandweg. Next is back through Bunnik-Vechten | Provincialeweg.

4. 4. back through Bunnik-Vechten | Provincialeweg

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Bunnik-Vechten | Provincialeweg write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Bunnik-Vechten | Provincialeweg, late in the day. Next is Dutch Water Defence Lines.

5. 5. Dutch Water Defence Lines

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Dutch Water Defence Lines write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Dutch Water Defence Lines. That is the ride.