Amsterdam to Essen

[S1h]

Planning to do this in June

Can anyone recommend a good route with an overnight stop?

I'll be riding a fold up bike. Looked at komoot it looks flat but maybe there is something interesting to see / stop along the way.

[Slowroad]

Assuming that's the German Essen? (I didn't know there were others until I put it into cycle.travel!) But it's a long way...
Goes through Arnhem and Nijmegen, and could follow the Rhine. Duisburg Nord Landschafts Park is worth a visit, its an old steelworks turned into a park.

[S1h]

Hi slowroad yes the German one. I was thinking Arnhem. Using a fold up bike. Maybe I need an extra day.

[plancashire]

For the last part between Duisburg and Essen I recommend the Ruhrtal Radweg. To get to the centre of Essen you have to leave it and head north uphill from the Baldeneysee. Alternatively, ride to Kupferdreh at the east end of the lake and catch a local S-Bahn train to Essen Hbf. Or ride further and catch a train at Essen-Steele. With a folded bike you do not need a Fahrradticket.

To Duisburg you could use the Rheinradweg. I have ridden both of these, but not along the Rhein far into the Netherlands.

[plancashire]

I had another thought. You could take the Emscher-Weg leaving the Rhein at Dinslaken. It goes north of Essen. On the way you could look at Schloß Oberhausen, Oberhausen Gasometer and the Slinky bridge, all near each other. The gasometer is used for exhibitions. It has a lift inside which takes you to the roof, from where you can see over the Ruhrgebiet industrial area. The route takes you quite a long way north of Landschaftspark Nord, the old steelworks in Duisburg. As a previous poster wrote, this is worth a visit. You can climb up the outside of one of the blast furnace towers. The Ruhradweg goes well south of this.

The Ruhr is greener and more rural; the Emscher is more industrial. The river has been cleaned up over the last few decades in what must be one of the biggest river restoration projects anywhere. It used to be described as the sewer of the Ruhrgebiet.

[Diatom]

Hi,

I cycled on my old 1980s Clements bike from the Hook of Holland to Essen and back last September, taking it slowly. It was a brilliant experience and I can really recommend doing it. I used Komoot to plan the tour and it was very reliable - almost too reliable because I didn't have to think very carefully about where to go, which perhaps makes the journey less memorable. Komoot seemed to choose excellent cycleways, especially in the Netherlands. All I needed to do was put in where I wanted to spend the night and it took me there along pleasant routes. I would like to show screen grabs of my route but I'm not sure if that would be breaking copyright.

Accommodation was a mixture or staying with friends, or relatives of friends, Vrienden op de Fiets, and hotels.

Vrienden op de Fiets (Friends on Bikes) https://www.vriendenopdefiets.nl/en/ is a brilliant way of staying with people who appreciate bicycles.

Anyway, here was my route:

Day 1: Hook of Holland to Utrecht
Day 2: Utrecht to Doesburg (a beautiful Dutch city, not the German Duisburg)
Day 3: Doesburg to Kalkar
Day 4: Kalkar to Essen

I attended a meeting in Essen for a few days and then cycled back along a more southerly route:

Day 8: Essen to Xanten
Day 9: Xanten to Heesch
Day 10: Heesch to Giessenburg (passing through s'-Hertogenbosch - worth a visit)
Day 11: Geissenburg to Hook of Holland (going through Rotterdam - really interesting to see how cycling works in a big city).

So my pace was quite slow, the most in one day was 93 km, the least 45 km. I don't think I am exaggerating if I say that everywhere I cycled through in the Netherlands was an absolute delight! Crossing the border from the Netherlands into Germany, you immediately notice the cycle tracks are less good. But they are still infinitely better than in the UK.

Essen is a surprisingly green and beautiful city, and there are long cycleways along old railway lines. But these cycleways don't always link up and then you have to go onto the main roads which are almost as bad as in England so take care!

Here's a picture taken in Delft (also worth a visit and the clock tower really was leaning to the left!):

[S1h]

Hi diatom. This is a fantastic post thank you.
So sorry for replying so late.