A surprising tour of Drenthe

As a cyclist you will never get tired of the Drentsche Aa National Stream and Esdorp Landscape. This route also takes you through the area around Donderen and the surprisingly historic Noordsche Veld.

Drentsche Aa
While almost every other area in the Netherlands was influenced by human hands, people here took the landscape as it lay. As a result, the characteristic identity of this 150-year-old esdorp landscape was preserved. This area is therefore the best preserved stream and esvillage landscape in Western Europe. You will see many Saxon farms around the village green, fields on the rounded ash trees and hay fields in the lower stream valley.

Historical village green
In Esdorp Vries you drive across the historic village green. This includes the St. Boniface Church, whose nave and tower date from the twelfth century. A little further on you will pass Hunebed D5. Around Zeijen you will pass two tjaskers that were previously used to drain fens for peat cutting.

Northern Field
Het Noordsche Veld is a special nature reserve just above Zeijen. Here you drive through a mix of forest, heathland and stream valley grasslands. You will find archaeological remains there, such as a large complex of prehistoric comb fields (also called Celtic fields). You will also find burial mounds called the Nine Mountains, although there are more. Before the Second World War there were even more burial mounds here. However, because the German occupier had constructed a mock airfield here with wooden planes, many of these burial mounds were bombed to pieces.