Skip to content

Tag: Nederlandse Spoorwegen

Cycling in de Bollenstreek

Published on 13 April 2025

While hashing usually involves running, sometimes hashers get on a bicycle as well. Every year in spring, the Dutch full moon hash FILTH H3 organises such a bicycle hash—or bash for short—in the Bollenstreek, the tulip region of the Netherlands. As the weather promised to be nice, I folded up my SUGG bike to shove it on the luggage rack of a train heading north!

At first it looked like I wasn’t even going to make it: just before the scheduled departure the train I booked was shown on the boards as delayed for 30 minutes, then postponed indefinitely, and then, all of a sudden, announced as arriving on another platform! For a while, things were looking fine, but then, because of the 40 minute delay we already had by then, we were chucked out of the train in Breda, instead of Rotterdam!

In the end, after a few more train changes than planned, I made it to the start of the bash in Hillegom in time, only half an hour later than planned. After waiting for some latecomers—because of similar train troubles—there were about two dozen hashers on bikes, ready for a ride through the Bollenstreek!

As mentioned, the weather promised to be nice, and it delivered! Cloudless skies and over 20ºC all the way, and tulips in bloom everywhere. And conveniently, the Bollenstreek is very flat, making cycling there very enjoyable. An unexpected bonus was the craft beer they had in the chip shop on trail!

After almost 40km, we ended up at the hares’ home, where the beers were cold, and the barbecue was fired up. Down-downs were given and drunk in a very long, two-part circle, which I even didn’t see the end of, since I had a train to catch, if I still wanted to make it home that night.

While everything went swimmingly at first—I even had time for a quick beer in Rotterdam Biergarten in between trains—in Breda it all went sideways again. The train—which was already hot when the airco was still kinda working—didn’t budge for half hour, and heated up even more. Eventually the train started moving again, and just a couple of minutes before one o’clock, it arrived in Brussels Central. One last, short ride on my bicycle, and I was finally home again!

Carnival in Tilburg

Carnival in Tilburg

Published on 1 March 2025

Somehow I keep ending up in North Brabant during carnival. However, while last time it was by accident, this time it was intentional: I went to Tilburg—for the occasion renamed Kruikenstad—for a special carnival run!

Tilburg station was very crowded when I arrived, and the square in front of it was even worse! The reason became clear when I overheard people discussing today’s schedule while I was having my coffee at Buut Vrij: right around the time I arrived in Tilburg, Prince Carnival—every town or village over there has one appointed for the carnival season—was expected there. I was basically crashing his welcome party!

Since I still had some time before my run, I seized the opportunity to discover the local craft beer scene. I didn’t expect many places to be open, or serving anything special during carnival, and my first intended stop—Café Kandinsky—was indeed closed… Luckily in the LOC Brewery it was business as usual, so I could try some of their beers there. I wanted to take a couple of cans for later—I love the Dutch hashers and their runs, but their choice of beers less so—but apparently there is a very strict separation between the hospitality industry and retail in the Netherlands! So after being unable to sell me any beer to go, bartender Teun was so kind to call ahead to Koen of De Bierbrigadier—the craft beer shop in town—to ask him to already put some LOC beers in the fridge for me, so they would be ready and cold for consumption later.

Amsterdam H3 Trail nº1442 – Carnaval in Tilburg

With cold beers in my bag, I then headed to the start location for the run. As is not uncommon for trails by the Amsterdam Hash House Harriers—the organisers of this run—the start was from the hare’s home. After waiting for everyone to actually find the place, and changing into a theme appropriate outfit, we were off! I was one of only two runners—the others were walkers—but we did get some nice views on trail the walkers didn’t! There were a couple of drink stops on trail, but one was quite unique: it was on a hand-operated chain ferry, in the middle of the canal!

After the run, we gathered back at Pink Panter’s apartment for Circle and dinner.

Since the Belgian rail unions were still partly on strike, I didn’t want to leave it until the last train to get home. So after dinner, I made my way through the partying city to the station—which was way less crowded than when I arrived there earlier that day—to catch an early train to Breda. Over there, it was a bit more chaotic—bigger carnival crowds, multiple last minute platform changes—but I made it on my train to Brussels eventually.

A Beery Birthday in Rotterdam

A Beery Birthday in Rotterdam

Published on 9 May 2024

A midweek public holiday in May was for me an excellent occasion to check out the newest additions to the craft beer scene in Rotterdam. Coincidentally, it was also my birthday, which meant I could claim a free birthday beer here and there…

After taking a very full train—even people standing in the corridors—from Brussels to Rotterdam, I really needed a coffee! There were definitely some decent coffee bars nearer to the station, but to get me closer to the rest of the locations I planned to visit, I decided on Urban Espresso Bar West this time. Breakfast was already more or less digested by now, so I had a nice piece of salted caramel cake with my cortado as an early dessert.

For the main dish, and to add another name to my long list of visited BrewDog bars, I then went to BrewDog Witte de Withstraat. The place was much larger than I expected from a bar in this street, but I was almost alone inside: the sun was shining, and terrace therefore more popular. After finishing my The Big Pastrami One pizza, I spent quite some time here, since none of the other bars I planned on visiting would open before 4pm… And I did get to enjoy my first free birthday beer!

Completely different, and way more local, was Kaapse Will’ns, the newest bar of the Rotterdam brewery Kaapse Brouwers. With just a limited number of taps, it tried to stay true to its origins as a traditional, local bar. Considering the number of people still asking for a Heineken, I’d say they succeeded! Funny detail: one of the tap handles actually says “Heineken“, but it’s the tap for sparkling water…

In the next bar—Bierboutique—the taps with “Heineken” on them actually did serve the horrid beer, and most of the other taps were from the same producer… The bottle and can list however was way more interesting, and I was able to try some more interesting local beers.

As last stop of the day I revisited the BrewDog Rotterdam Outpost. It wasn’t that busy when I came in, but considering the number of booked tables that would later fill up, it was probably smart they actually booked a table for me as well! One of the nice things of an Outpost is a selection of unique beers, brewed on-site. They were actually brewing while I was there! That beer obviously wouldn’t be ready in time to have as my free birthday, so I had another one instead.
For dinner I had the local special Brews Springstew, a six hour slow cooked stew with beef cheek, onion, celery, carrots, and Black Heart stout, served on a bed of fresh fries. Very nice, but I could hardly finish it!

When all the beers were tasted, it was time to head back to the beautiful Rotterdam central station, and take the train home…

Yuletide Trip to Breda

Published on 28 December 2022

After a largely failed attempt to enjoy Breda’s craft beer scene in 2020, I had more success this year! A train cancellation just before I was about to set off, didn’t bode well, but when I eventually got to Breda, all the bars I intended to visit where open, and serving a fine selection of local and not-so-local beers!

The coffee places were quite full, in this strange period between Christmas and New Year, so I decided to forgo coffee all together, and went straight for beer! On the itinerary for the afternoon were Zeezicht, Café Sam Sam, and Mr. Barley—which, in despite of its lack of bar, is not a self service bar!

Even though I had a decent brunch that morning, it was about time to line the stomach again before continuing with some more, quite strong beers. Being the peanut sauce fan I am, I picked out a satay place in the Foodhall Breda: Minang Kabau. It turned out to be an excellent choice!

The evening was then spend tasting many beers—one even straight from the tank!—in Brouwcafé Frontaal. It was quite empty when I sat down at the bar, but it filled up quite nicely behind me!

Then it was time to take the last train back to Brussels. It was quite a bit emptier than the train I had taken to get to Breda—train cancellations tend to have that effect on the next trains—so the journey home was pleasant enough, and uneventful.

Boat Trips and Beer Flights

Published on 31 July 2021 
Reached this post by just scrolling through my blog? 
If you want to read about this trip from start to finish, instead of in reverse order, click here!

A long walk all across town brought me to Kaapse Kaap, the taproom of the Kaapse Brouwers, for a first waterside beer. Their brewery is at a different location nowadays, and unfortunately without its own taproom.

A watertaxi brought me to a temporary taproom of another Rotterdam brewery: Vet & Lazy, They recently opened a Pub-Up-Bar in the city centre. After this I made a short stop at Kaapse Maria, the city center restaurant and bar of Kaapse Brouwers.

I couldn’t leave the Netherlands without having some Surinamese food, and Warung Mini was the perfect place to get it. I really needed some food to start soaking up that beer!

My last stop of this trip was BrewDog Outpost Rotterdam. There I could finally get that stamp in my Beer Visa they didn’t have yet the previous time I visited them…

Then it was about time to get back to the train station, and go back to Brussels…
Hopefully my next trip will be a bit longer again!

Done reading about this trip? Resume reading my blog in the usual order!