Netherlands 24: Riding around Wassenaar

On our first full day at Duinrell and while everyone was getting ready, I set out on a quick morning ride around Wassenaar. This is a familiar route that I’ve ridden previously and covered some of it in 2022, when construction of the A44 RijnlandRoute was in progress.

Watch full-length video at normal speed Riding around Wassenaar

Setting off from Duinrell, I turned left onto Storm van ‘s-Gravesandeweg, along the paved cycle path, then turned left onto Katwijkseweg, which you’d guess from the name, leads to Katwijk.

Paved bidirectional cycle path on Storm van 's-Gravesandeweg — Paved bidirectional cycle path on Storm van ‘s-Gravesandeweg

There’s a small roundabout, where there’s the turning for the beach at Wassenaarseslag. I continued on Katwijkseweg, which becomes the N441 at this point. At this point, the cycle path changes to a nice wide and smooth asphalt surface.

Crossing a roundabout slip road on N441 Katwijkseweg

At the next roundabout, I turned right onto Kokshornlaan, which goes back towards Wassenaar, on a cycle path next to a golf course. This led me through a small park and green space, which we’ve been through many times on the way to Leiden.

Leaving the park, I made my way on Jaagpad, the path that runs next to the Zijwatering Canal. Again, this is somewhere we’ve been lots of times on the way to Leiden. There’s another, more direct route to Leiden from Wassenaar, but this is a lovely scenic route.

Continuing along the path, it turned into an access road for a short section, before turning into a concrete path that was put down reasonably recently. Arriving at the Valkenburgse Meer lake, I turned right and made my way along the path that follows the Stoomtrein Katwijk Leiden narrow gauge railway track.

Path next to the railway tracks for Stoomtrein Katwijk Leiden, next to the Valkenburgse Meer lake

Stoomtrein Katwijk Leiden is a heritage railway, surrounding the Valkenburgse Meer lake. Originally, the track and trains were part of the NV Leidsche Duinwater Maatschappij (LDM), which was a railway based in the Katwijk dunes, and were used to support the water pumps, which used to supply water to the nearby area.

After they were no longer required to support the water pumps, they ran as a heritage railway in the dunes for a number of years. With the pollution generated by the steam engines becoming an issue, the heritage railway was relocated to lake, next to the old Valkenburg Air Base.

It’s a few years since we’ve been to Stoomtrein Katwijk Leiden, the last time was back in 2017. But we did really enjoy going there, riding round the lake on the old trains and exploring the station and workshops.

After leaving the lake, I turned right onto Ommedijkseweg, then passed under the A44 and over the N434, towards the Stevenshofjesmolen windmill. At this point, I was riding next to the Zijwatering Canal, which also passes over the N434.

This whole section of path has been redeveloped, as part of one of the RijnlandRoute projects, providing an east-west connection between the A4 and A44 motorways. Other projects include improving the link between Leiden and Katwijk, along the N206.

While the Netherlands is renowned for its extensive railway and cycle networks, as well as generally excellent public transport, it also has many motorways and trunk roads, with the number on the increase.

While you can certainly question the logic of these big road building schemes, particularly as the reasons for the scheme are the good old economic benefits and improvements to traffic flow. At least the schemes do include significant investment in high quality walking and cycling routes, such as the award winning work done on the N206.

After stopping near the windmill, I turned back round and headed across the N434 and A44 again, then turned left onto Oude Trambaan. As part of the RijnlandRoute scheme, the path here has been upgraded to a smooth red concrete surface, which was nice and wide, and very pleasant to ride on.

The path continued onto Deijlerweg, where it ran along the road, now returning to asphalt as I made my way back towards Wassenaar. Initially on Deijlerweg, the path was a fully separated and bidirectional, it then became one-way and then turned into a stepped track.

It’s a bit of weird setup the stepped cycle track in Wassenaar, as it’s between the road and car parking, meaning you’re riding in the door zone. I could understand if it was old, but it’s relatively new. It’s reasonably wide I guess.

Door zone stepped cycle path on Deijlerweg

I think a lot of this can be put down to Wassenaar being quite a car-centric town, relatively speaking for the Netherlands. With its demographic, lots of big houses and embassies, people driving large SUVs, I guess it’s not surprising.