Month: September 2008

Groene Hart: Delfland

Squeezed between Delft and Rotterdam, the Delfland is a low-land area where, in the Dutch Golden age, painters like Potter (famous for his painting “De Stier” (“The Bull”) and poets like Poot lived: an area rich with cattle, and wide views. Nowadays, the cattle is partly gone, and large parts of the countryside are preserved in a slightly “wild” format. The main function today is recreational, because of the close proximity of large cities of the Randstad conurbation: Rotterdam, Schiedam and Vlaardingen at the South, and Delft, and The Hague and surrounding towns in the North. Both ways, you’ll see the skyline of high buildings at the horizon, and the only really free views are West and East. Well, free, not entirely, because the once small villages in these directions grow fast, and occupy more and more of the open landscape. The path runs close to the urban boundaries twice – we tipped the edges in Vlaardingen en Delft, below many-strey flats; but elsewhere, it runs in the open area, along canals and old paths and dikes. Houses, however, are always near.
Despite these threats, the land is still a good place for many birds that live on the meadowland and water. Not that we did see many – it’s too late in the year for large numbers – but in spring, there will be many, no doubt.

I took some pictures, and the tracks are, as usual, available in Garmin, generic and CSV formats.

This is the final stretch of this regional path. The booklet covering it all and giving quite some detail on the land, it’s history and (possible) future, is published by NIVON. We used the second edition, 2004, ISBN 90 70601 85 0

Groene Hart: Schieland

This part of the path has different faces.
Starting off on the bank of the Hollandse IJssel opposite Ouderkerk (because there was no need to cross the river by ferry just for the sake of the route), the first part leads through the wild regions of Hitland, a remainder of the low lands of Holland, so low it was left wet and swampy. We kept dry feet because the elevated path that bridged the lower, wet marshes. Next, leading along an old road, showing views on the low land – barely above the water. It didn’t stop people building houses, but at times, specific fundaments are needed.
From there, we entered the boundaries of Capelle; this is a suburb of Rotterdam, exploded in the 60’s and 70’s, a lot of high appartement buildings, here called flats, and lots of free space and parkland surrounding them. Getting nearer Rotterdam, the Big City was ever more closing in.
We came out the suburban builded area and followed the park along the shores of the Kralingse Plas, just North of Rotterdam, following the borders of the river Rotte and and the Bergsscho Voorplas, and then, once again, entering a suburban area, again though parks between flats that give the city people a sense of nature.
Finally, we recollected our bikes at the railway station in Berkel -Rodenrijs and cycled back to the car.

Because of the differences in this 23 kilometers, despite it’s mainly in suburban space, this is one of the nicer walks. You wouldn’t expect such a green space in one of the densiest populated corners of the world….

These are the images that give you an impression of the area; Of course, the tracks are available in Garmin, generic and CVS formats.