The Great Peel

Cycling in the Peel region is cycling in an area full of cultural history. On the border of North Brabant and Limburg lies an area unlike anywhere else in the Netherlands: Mariapeel, Deurnsche Peel and Groote Peel National Park together form an impressive marsh. Here the landscape can be read like a history book. The vast majority of the peat swamp was excavated by peat cutters and sold as peat, the'gold of the Peel\\\'. The traces of peat cutting are still everywhere. Once an impenetrable swamp, now a landscape of water, moors, sand ridges, birch trees and open plains overgrown with pipe straw. Back then it was a place you would rather not come, now it is a paradise for nature lovers and hikers. The tranquility of the Groote Peel attracts more than a hundred species of breeding birds and migratory birds, such as the trumpeting crane, also settle here. But be careful, don't just look up. Sometimes a large puddle of water is hidden under the bottom of peat moss.