Heaven is Holland in August
I have just got back from what might just be my perfect weekend away!
The main goal of the weekend was to head to Holland to celebrate my aunt’s birthday, but I had a few other must-dos on my list too…
Stop in Laren for the perfect plate of poffertjes
Visit the Fortuna Vlieland Brewery
Swim in the sea
Eat as many Bitterballen as possible
We took the Harwich Hook of Holland ferry and when we got off the boat we made a quick stop in Lieden to stretch our legs. The first thing on the agenda was to head to Laren. Not only is it where my dad was born, but it is also home to quite possibly the best Poffertje stand in all of Holland! (At least in my opinion)
If you’ve never had the joy of eating a Poffertje, it is a very small, fluffy pancake smothered in copious amounts of butter and icing sugar. You’ll know you're at the right place when you can taste the sugar in the air!
Once we’d fuelled up, it was time to head up to Harlingen to catch the boat to Vlieland!
The next morning it was time to start our adventuring. You can’t bring a car onto the island, so we hired bicycles and headed off.
Our first stop was the beach, where we had lunch at a lovely little restaurant called OOST, which consisted of some very tasty bitterballen and some Fortuna Vlieland beer. This led us very nicely to our second stop of the day, a tour of the Fortuna Vlieland Brewery. There, we found out about all the incredible water they have on Vlieland, which has been filtered through the dunes and is the base for all of the beers they brew - we even got to try some of their new Rode Kabouter beer straight from the tank.
We were then all ready for an evening of sunset-filled birthday celebrations!
Most of Vlieland is made up of sand dunes - very tricky to cycle over - so we spent our final full day hopping on a large yellow truck known as the Vliehors Express, which took us to visit the west side of the island. We stopped at the Drenkelingenhuisje - a little white hut on stilts which used to act as a refuge for shipwrecked sailors - it is now used as a museum for things that get washed up by the sea and is surrounded by vast amounts of driftwood.
We ended the day with a dip in the sea and a drink back in the town, before our final supper.
And that was the end to our perfect weekend in Vlieland!
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