Tour of Dwingelderveld and Beilen

From here you cycle to the Mantingerveld, where you cycle through the heath along drifting sand hills covered with juniper berries. Dwingelderveld National Park, a little further away, is the largest wet heathland area in Western Europe. Wet lows and high sand ridges alternate. You will find heathland, forest, juniper groves, drifting sand and more than forty fens. Some of these fens were created during the Ice Age, others are the result of peat excavations. In the spring you see white peat fluff, in the summer the heather turns purple. In Beilen the ash tree still forms the center of the village. You can admire the fifteenth-century Stephen's Church there. Just outside the village you pass the Molen van Makkum, a beautiful flour mill from 1906.