Utrecht-Limes road | Veldhuizen and Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Utrecht-Limes road | Veldhuizen

   This is a ride along an old frontier that is now a residential suburb. When the Romans held the lower Rhine, the river itself was the border of the empire, and a chain of forts, watchtowers and roads ran along its south bank. One of the forts stood where Utrecht is now, under the name Traiectum, and another, with a fine reconstruction, lies in the modern district of Leidsche Rijn. The whole frontier, the Lower German Limes, was added to the World Heritage list in 2021. Today it is hard to see anything of it, because the Rhine silted up and shifted, and the land is mostly polder, pasture and new housing estate.

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

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Utrecht-Limes road | Veldhuizen is where the day begins. Next is Voorburg-Arentsburg.

2. 2. Voorburg-Arentsburg

   Under the suburbs between The Hague and Delft lie the remains of Forum Hadriani, the northernmost Roman town on the continent, founded in the early second century AD and named after the emperor Hadrian. At Arentsburg, a country estate in Voorburg, excavations revealed streets, houses, a harbour and a canal, the Fossa Corbulonis, dug by Roman soldiers to link the Rhine and the Meuse. The site is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire, Lower German Limes World Heritage Site, listed in 2021, which follows the Rhine frontier through the Netherlands and Germany.

   Read the complete Voorburg-Arentsburg write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Voorburg-Arentsburg comes up 63 km in. Next is Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden.

3. 3. Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden

   At the mouth of the North Sea Canal, where giant locks let ocean-going ships into the waterway that leads to Amsterdam, a round island fort sits in the middle of the harbour. This is Fort IJmuiden, also called Forteiland, built in the 1880s as the westernmost stronghold of the Defence Line of Amsterdam, a ring of forts, dikes and flood fields designed to protect the capital by inundating the land around it. The Defence Line, now part of the UNESCO-listed Dutch Water Defence Lines, is one of the more ingenious military systems ever devised: rather than walls, it relied on water a few decimetres deep, too shallow for boats and too deep for marching.

   Read the complete Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   125 km in you reach Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden. Next is back through Voorburg-Arentsburg.

4. 4. back through Voorburg-Arentsburg

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Voorburg-Arentsburg write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   back through Voorburg-Arentsburg, late in the day. Next is Utrecht-Limes road | Veldhuizen.

5. 5. Utrecht-Limes road | Veldhuizen

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

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

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Back at Utrecht-Limes road | Veldhuizen. That is the ride.