After our visit to the sand dunes, and since we were already so far east, we decided to drive further out in Drenthe to the hunebedden, or megalithic burial chamber. Our goal was to see several, but we ended up only having time for one. We saw D05 aka de Nergen Bergen. After about an hour drive, we parked at the lot and started strolling the short path through fields and a canal. Unfortunately, we got lost and went the wrong way, which probably doubled the length of our walk!
Thankfully, we saw some beautiful sights along the way, and the entire walk was very peaceful. We didn’t see many other trekkers.
The hunebed itself was a bit underwhelming – most of all because it ends up you could have driven right up to it from the other highway! Oh well. We did get to frolic a little in the field with the Scottish Highland Cattle, as the sun was setting!
The next day, we had an entirely different adventure planned! We decided to go to Giethoorn, a picturesque canal-latticed village that sits surrounded by Nationaal Park Weerribben-Wieden. We walked into the village and immediately rented our kayaks – the weather was looking OK and we wanted to take advantage of it while we could!
We paddled past the little houses sitting on de grachten (canals) until we entered the wide open Bovenwijde. On the other side, across from Giethoorn, we entered a network of waterways through the reeds, dikes, and farmlands. It was an incredibly peaceful day, and we did the full tour that we found on the website!
As we came back into Giethoorn from the south, the rain started to pick up. We dropped off our kayaks (we had rented them just from a man who looked like he ran the business out of his home) and got lunch at one of the tiny restaurants. Cold, a little wet, and very tired, we headed to Zwolle for an evening city stroll.
