The urge to romanticise the Dutch way of life gets the better of me as I cycle through the sand dunes outside The Hague. Perhaps it’s the lunchtime Amstel talking, or the cheerful skylarks singing overhead, or the mood-lifting sunshine, but I surrender easily to the notion that the Dutch really have built a utopia of sorts. It’s not just me, either.
“Dutch people are quite humble and maybe don’t realise what they’ve created,” says Chris Bruntlett, riding alongside me. Bruntlett is the Canadian-born international relations manager at the Dutch Cycling Embassy, an organisation that leverages the Netherlands’ cycling expertise to promote pedal power globally.
“Dutch cities are very people-centric,” he coos, as bronzed riders breeze past us towards the beach. “Most of them are basically one big low-traffic neighbourhood. [Cycling] has been depoliticised here. Even some centre-right parties are pro-bike.”
It’s tempting to think that cycling is somehow in Dutch people’s DNA, that they were built to bestride a bike in the way that Britons weren’t. But the country’s cycle culture was not heaven sent. It was hard won.
When low-traffic neighbourhoods started appearing in Dutch cities in the 70s, people were furious. “There were protests, death threats,” says Bruntlett. Two things changed the narrative. The first was growing outrage over the 3,000 people – including 450 children – who were killed on Dutch roads annually. The second was the 1973 oil crisis, which choked the supply of fuel.
“The sale of bikes doubled,” says Bruntlett. “Suddenly people saw their cities without cars. It was a lightbulb moment.” Half a century later, the rest of the world has seen the light and is going Dutch.
A holiday in The Hague, then – the “world’s best large city for cycling”, according to the People for Bikes City Index – is like a trip to the near-future. “That’s what the Dutch Cycling Embassy is about,” says Bruntlett. “We’re saying: ‘this is what cities could look and feel like 40 years from now.”
As well as providing cyclists with easy access to residential areas, jobs and schools, The Hague scores highly for access to recreational amenities such as parks and trails. It is a 20-minute city, though officially it’s still classed as a village. Homes, workplaces, schools, parks and the beach are linked up by more than 370km of cycle paths and 70km of lanes — quite a feat for a city measuring just under 100 sq km.
Only there are no “cyclists” in The Hague. “There’s no such thing as a cyclist here because everyone cycles,” says Bruntlett, who bristles at the word. “It almost creates a subspecies,” he says, adding that the Netherlands, perhaps surprisingly, has a higher rate of car ownership than the UK.
Bruntlett also disputes The Hague’s status as the world’s best biking city. “That’s Utrecht,” he reckons. “But we’re splitting hairs at this point.”
My two-wheeled jaunt to the contested No 1 cycling city began the previous night in Harwich, Essex, where I caught an overnight ferry to Hook of Holland. This Dutch village is the only place I’ve ever cycled through passport control.
From “the corner” (de Hoek) it’s a breezy, 18km-ride on segregated lanes to Scheveningen, the impossible-to-pronounce seaside resort with a broad, sandy beach buffeted by the North Sea.
There’s a faded, kiss-me-quick charm to parts of the town, but also a contemporary, gentrified air. Amid the dunes, beach bars serve cocktails to day trippers and locals, while cargo ships idle at sea, waiting for commodity prices to rise before disgorging their contents in Rotterdam.
Scheveningen is a northern district of The Hague, the only seaside city in the Netherlands and the country’s political capital. It’s not like other Dutch cities. There are fewer canals, and it isn’t sinking like Amsterdam; its step-gabled buildings stand straight and proud, not crooked, adding to the sense of pomp.
“We’re a bit posher than the rest of the Netherlands,” reckons Remco Dörr, an impeccably coiffed “city host” showing me around. “The real beauty is in the art. We have the largest concentration of museums in the Netherlands.”
Escher in the Palace, a gallery dedicated to the work of graphic artist MC Escher, is one highlight. But The Hague’s party piece is Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pear Earring, often lazily dubbed “the Dutch Mona Lisa”. It hangs among Rembrandt, Jan Steen and Paulus Potter’s work – to name a few – in Mauritshuis, a stunning lakeside gallery offering a snapshot of Dutch golden age paintings.
Dörr joins me on a ride through the city. We cycle on lanes that next month will be used for the opening stages of the Tour de France Femmes. It’ll be the first time the tour has started outside of France.
Lidy Münninghoff, a librarian and member of KEK, a local cycling club for women, will be among those cheering riders on. “I’m proud that the tour is coming here because when I was a girl I could not identify with any women on a bike,” she says, joining us briefly for the ride. “Cycling changed my life. When I don’t cycle, I don’t feel good.”
There is a simple joy in cycling along leafy lanes, through manicured parks, past cafes spilling out onto the streets. The human traffic on the cycle lanes is diverse.
The nippy moped riders are off-putting, though, and I almost collide with one of the “oat milk mums”, as Dörr calls them. “They clog up the cycle lanes with their big cargo bikes full of children who can ride themselves but are too lazy,” he says, sardonically.
To ease congestion, The Hague ploughed €65m into an ongoing project to improve cycle infrastructure. It’s a reminder that the work to make cities more liveable is never complete. But the Dutch got a head start. Now the rest of the world is catching up.
How to get there
Ferries from Harwich to Hook of Holland are operated by Stena Line.
How to get around
Bike hire is available from Haag Schestadsfiets.
Where to stay
The Collector Hotel in the Hague has doubles from €158.
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