Day 17 - Elspeet

There's something about the visage of bicycles, usually in pairs, gliding seamlessly across the Dutch landscape, smooth as swans, that evokes a sense of calm. Happy enjoyment, pleasant past-time, slow and easy living. Multiply that by dozens -- there's hardly a time, as you cast your eyes across the land, that you don't see these gliding bodies sitting upright on their tweewielers -- and you get an overall sense that Holland is a happy place to be. Copacetic.

That's how it felt as we wound our way through the Koninklijke Houtvesterij Het Loo, one of the largest forested nature reserves in the Netherlands. And a popular destination for tourists, mostly Dutch, and at this time of year, before school ends, mostly retired folk. We take it easy, stop for the requisite mid-morning coffee and appelgebak met slagroom (yummy apple cake with whipped cream) at an outdoor cafe, ubiquitous in most towns, slow down for interpretive signs and dismount for photo ops. It's a cruisy life.

But deeper into the forest, another, darker story emerges. We stop at a picnic bench for lunch at an intersection of fietspaden where a number of bicyclists have dismounted and are huddled around a large sign. It must be an interesting sign because they stand there for quite some time reading. Then they get the pooch, panting in his basket on the front end of a bicycle, clip on a leash and take off into the forest just behind us.

We finish our lunch and amble over to the sign. "Het Verscholen Dorp" it reads, "The Secret Village." The sign tells the story of the 80 refugees, Jews, British airmen and German deserters, who went into hiding in this forest toward the end of WWII. Local villagers built underground huts to shelter and hide the refugees from the Nazi occupiers. It all went well until the end of October 1944 when two Nazi soldiers discovered the encampment, rounded up the residence, killing 9 of them, and destroyed the huts. This event took place in the exact location where we're happily, obliviously eating our picnic lunch. To commemorate the people who lost their lives, and the brave Dutch people who helped them, five huts have been reconstructed in the forest behind us to replicate those that stood originally in this "secret village" hidden deep in the forest.

Now this forest is a happy recreation place for pleasure- and leisure-seekers. How strange are the stories, continuously changing, that shape our evolving history!

The bos (woods) have also been ravaged since the war days, logged for wood and re-planted with imported pine, which, as in so many places that have converted forests to pine plantations, are looking meagre and sad -- spindly trunks, dead branches, and little undergrowth. But other parts of the bos are beautiful, left to their native splendour, towering beech, oak and maple that create a translucent green tunnel over our heads. The forest then opens into a heide (heathlands), vast meadows of heath that grow on low-nutrient sand hills. We park our bikes and take a walk to take a break from riding and get a sense of this new and unusual landscape.

The Elspeet molen.