Rietveld Schröderhuis and Leiden-Roomburg | Besjeslaan
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
116 km
Riding-time estimate
1 h 55
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Utrecht it runs 116 km to Utrecht; allow about 1 h 55 of riding. On the way it passes Woerden-Centrum, Leiden-Roomburg | Besjeslaan and back through Woerden-Centrum. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Scenic road chapters
Dutch Flower Route
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 35 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Chapter facts
Length
34 km
Named road
Dutch Flower Route
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Rietveld Schröderhuis
On a quiet residential street in Utrecht, a few minutes from the centre by bicycle, stands a small box-shaped house made of white and grey planes, with black frames and touches of red, yellow and blue, which looks as though it had been made from a Mondrian painting. This is the Rietveld Schroder House, built in 1924 and inscribed by UNESCO in 2000 as a masterpiece of the De Stijl movement and of modern architecture. The old centre of Utrecht, with its cathedral tower and its canals, is under two kilometres away.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Rietveld Schröderhuis is where the day begins. Next is Woerden-Centrum.
2. Woerden-Centrum
Woerden is a small Dutch town on the Oude Rijn, the old Rhine, halfway between Utrecht and Leiden, in the middle of the Green Heart of Holland, a landscape of polders, meadows, ditches and cows. Its centre is a compact old town ringed by canals, with a castle, a big church and a windmill on the old ramparts. The Romans were here too: Woerden lies on the line of the Lower German Limes, and the remains of a Roman fort lie beneath the town centre.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Woerden-Centrum comes up about 24 km into the recorded legs. Next is Leiden-Roomburg | Besjeslaan.
3. Leiden-Roomburg | Besjeslaan
The Rhine ends in a whimper rather than a bang. After its long journey from the Alps, its old main branch, the Oude Rijn, winds quietly through the flat polders of South Holland past Leiden toward the North Sea, and for the Romans this sluggish waterway was the northern frontier of the empire. At Roomburg, on the edge of Leiden and Leiderdorp, stood the fort of Matilo, guarding the river and the canal that linked it with the Meuse, and today its site is part of the Roomburgerpark, a green space with information points and outlines marking where the fort stood. It belongs to the Lower Germanic Limes, listed by UNESCO in 2021.