We're in the process of booking a three week stay near Arnhem for this summer. Although hubby has visited Holland before for 'er indoors and DS(11) it's a first time experience.
We'll be taking the Kampa Filey and our trusty trailer as well as bikes for hubby and DS and mobility scooter for 'EI. We hope to be able to hire a conventional pedal trike while we're over there so we can go out all together without the bikers having to keep to 4mph all the time!
Does anybody have any relevant experience or tips to share please? In particular relating to towing the trailer in the Netherlands, 'trike hire and places worth visiting in the Arnhem area.
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My only tip is to ensure you keep your vehicle docs to hand at all times when driving in Holland. We have been "spot checked" twice in the Netherlands by police officers who wanted to see our driving licence, insurance papers etc etc.
Bike hire is very very widespread, most people cycle so I'd imagine you'll have no trouble -didn't see many trikes though.
Haven't visited Arnhem, so can't comment on that area specifically, but it's a wonderful country, clean and the people are very friendly. English is almost universally spoken by people as a second language. Do get a phrase book though, unlike tourist France most menus are only in Dutch in restaurants, and it's good to be able to at least say please and thank you, I think. We'd quite happily live in Holland if we spoke the language, it's so nice there.
Quote: Originally posted by exessexmum on 10/5/2010
My only tip is to ensure you keep your vehicle docs to hand at all times when driving in Holland. We have been "spot checked" twice in the Netherlands by police officers who wanted to see our driving licence, insurance papers etc etc.
Undoubtedly good advice, but in four years of living here I've never been asked for my papers. (My car has Dutch plates, though.)
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Bike hire is very very widespread, most people cycle so I'd imagine you'll have no trouble -didn't see many trikes though.
Trikes aren't particularly common, but in yuppier parts of the country a lot of people have a "bakfiets" - a bike with a large wooden wheelbarrow-y sort of thing, and a lot of them are three-wheelers for stability. I'm sure you can rent a regular trike, too.
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We'd quite happily live in Holland if we spoke the language, it's so nice there.
The language is actually much easier than most people (including the natives) think...
Arnhem is lovely and there's lots of good cycling round there. When are you going? We'll be stopping off there at the start of July.
It was our first visit to the Netherlands last year and though almost everyone does speak English, the place I had problems was the supermarket! Everything was written in Dutch of course and I'd be standing there with some packet or product thinking "And this is....? Is it raw??? What do I need to do with it???" There were a couple of interesting surprises, lol.
There are a few restrictions when towing a trailer...my advice is to go to the AA site and check under "Driving Abroad" for the up to date info.
Bikes take priority. If you're at a roundabout and the cycle path cuts straight across you, they're on the roundabout and you GIVE WAY. If you hit a cyclist it's your fault untill proven otherwise, even if they practically threw themselves in front of you. It's hard for us Brits to get their heads round this given that cyclists are third rate scum on UK roads but you have too. I'm a cyclist and I still found this a mental shift! Just give way to them all the time. It's easier.
Watch out for the traffic calming when towing. Dutch speed bumps are HUGE. We went round one town grounding the towball out every third bump, even at 10mph.
Driving is certainly easier than on the mad mental French roads, lol. It was quite a shift when we drove south!
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Quote: Originally posted by jenchris40 on 11/5/2010
We checked the AA site for towing restrictions and couldn't find any specific to the Netherlands - maybe we need to look again.
Speed limit with trailer is 90 km/h. Apart from that I don't know of any towing-specific regulations off hand. (I have a trailer-tent, but also a memory like a sieve.)
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Topic: Camping in Holland
