Tour of Alphen aan den Rijn

You will cycle through the middle of the Groene Hart, a typical Dutch polder landscape with mills, farms, pollard willows and groves, surrounded by lots and lots of water: ditches, rivers, canals and lakes.

Boskoop is situated on both banks of the Gouwe and is connected by the Boskoop lift bridge, which, due to its height, occupies a prominent place in the streetscape of Boskoop. The floor of the bridge can be raised vertically. Once you have crossed the bridge, you will soon be cycling through the special landscape around Boskoop.

The municipality is nationally and internationally known for its tree nurseries. More than 750 tree nurseries are spread over an area of 1100 hectares. Traditionally, the soil under Boskoop has been particularly suitable for tree cultivation. For centuries, Boskoop has focused on the cultivation of fruit and fruit trees (particularly apples). It is not without reason that the name of the municipality was given to an apple variety that is widespread in the Low Countries: the Belle van Boskoop (also known as the Goudreinette). As early as the Middle Ages, approximately 2000 kilometres of ditches had been constructed in the municipality, with elongated islands in between, often only about 15 metres wide. This was necessary for the drainage of the nurseries, but also for the transport of the trees. The latter was done with so-called schouwen, wooden boats, which you still see sailing, but then because they are used for tourist cruises. Over time, ditches were filled in and farmlands were merged, but much of the characteristic landscape, of islands with waterways, has been preserved. Boskoop is therefore sometimes called `Little Giethoorn\\\'.

Up to Hazerswoude-Dorp you can enjoy the polder land with the neat tree nursery plots, waterways, (draw) bridges and mills that drained the polder such as the Rietveldsemolen and the Blauwe Wip. The Nieuw Leven mill in the centre of Hazerswoude-Dorp used to be a polder mill but was later converted into a corn mill.

South of Hazerswoude-Dorp and east of Benthuizen, a lot of peat was cut in the past, which created large peat lakes. After reclamation, the lands were reclaimed in the 19th century. In Waddinxveen, you cross the Gouwe again via the Waddinxveen lifting bridge, a similar bridge to the one in Boskoop. On the way back to the starting location, you will find more of the archipelago with the many tree nurseries of Boskoop. A nice detail is that all sizes in the Boskoop nursery area are still set out in the Rijnlandse roede, an old Dutch length measurement of 3.76 meters, or 14.19 square meters. This applies to, for example, the size of a nursery and the planting distance between avenue trees. The width of the numerous islands is also based on the Rijnlandse roede.