Most tourists visit the Netherlands for Amsterdam, tulips, windmills or weed, but few are those who know that this country has one of the most beautiful villages in the world. Known as "Venice of the Netherlands" or "Little Venice of the North", Giethoorn is a fairy tale village.
We found out about Giethoorn for years, we had it on our bucket list, so we said that when we go to see Amsterdam, we'll visit the village, too.
It's not very easy to get there using public transport, especially from Utrecht, where we stayed, but we rented a car and the price was similar because their train and bus tickets are very expensive.
In Giethoorn there are no streets, so we left the car at the entrance to the village. We knew this beforehand and we didn't mind at all- that's why the village is extremely clean and not polluted at all. We didn't pay for parking because we went to a hotel to ask where the parking lot was and the owners told us that we could leave it in their backyard, they were incredibly nice - they also helped us with a problem with the car.
Returning to the village: the streets are replaced with canals and the cars with boats. On both sides of the lake you can admire the traditional houses and the villagers shod in traditional Dutch clogs mowing the grass. We thought those shoes were museum pieces, but we saw villagers wearing it in their backyard. Speaking of grass, no matter how they choose to trim it- either manually or with robot machines that are programmed to do all the work themselves- the grass looks perfect everywhere, it would make jealous even the Wimbledon staff🙂
The raw green of the freshly trimmed grass combines harmoniously with the multitude of flowers (especially tulips) ducklings and swans, wooden bridges, alleys and "gingerbread" houses where the calm atmosphere reigns, interrupted only by the exclamations of amazement of some excited tourists 🙂
The name of the village is related to the discovery of several hundreds goat horns (Gietehorens), following some floods in the tenth century, so you will see this symbol through various places.
The best way to explore the village is through a canal cruise. We opted for the one-hour cruise, but if we were to visit the village again, we would choose two hours because it seemed to us that we were always on the run, we did not have time to admire everything in peace and we could not take pictures. The prices for renting the boat differ from one trader to another, we took one from the owner of a café, we do not know exactly what it was called (it's a picture below with it) where we drank a hot chocolate with delicious almond milk and we received and small brownies from the owner. She told us that her husband rented boats and so we found out that the price was lower than the ones we had seen before. The hardest part is that you have to maneuver the boat yourself with the help of a lever and you have a certain route that you have to follow, you can't go back, so you have to carefully follow the map received from them, you do not have GPS. But we must admit that although it may seem intimidating at first because the boat commands are the opposite of what is normal, after a little while you get used to it and everything becomes a fun adventure.
The population of the village is 2620 inhabitants, but the number of tourists is infinitely higher, we understood that Giethoorn attracts over 1 million tourists annually, especially Chinese tourists (over 200,000/year) and indeed, and when we were there, they were the most numerous. We weren't in peak season and yet the canal was full of boats, sometimes we had to stop to let others pass, so we can't even imagine what summer is like. You have to know that it's very cold and current on the water (we were in the middle of spring) so it's good to have a coat with you and maybe something to put on your head.
After we finished the "cruise" with the boat, we walked around the alleys and we discovered other beautiful houses. In Giethoorn there are over 150 wooden bridges to pass from one side of the bank to the other. Locals use bicycles, boats or they walk and everything is designed to live a green life. And you'll probably say: well, but boats pollute. They thought about this- the boats that run on the canals are with low capacity eco-engines.
We loved this village very much and we think it's charming in any season, so we would like to come back in the summer, when it's warm and it's definitely full of flowers, and the temperatures on the boat are certainly more bearable than in April, when they were below ten degrees.
We don't think that you will be disappointed if you choose to visit Giethoorn, on the contrary you will have what to admire, it is different from a traditional village, so we advise you to book a day to go here if you visit Holland.
