Utrecht Path
March 2025
The Utrecht Path's Royal Leg!
The Utrecht Path keeps on giving unexpected gems. Finding this serene beauty close to Utrecht’s large cities and suburbs is a welcoming wonder! We thoroughly enjoyed our royal walk today.
From Baarn station, the Utrecht path passed the former historical train station. Now It’s “Eethuys-Café De Generaal,”. We immediately entered the Baarnse Bos (Baarn Forest). The Baarnse Bos was created as a French landscape garden between 1733 and 1758. We wandered through the Star Forest, Sterrenbos. In its middle lies the Grote Kom, a natural pond fed by spring water. All eight lanes with ancient oaks and beeches end here, hence the name. In the 18th century, marble statues were scattered throughout the park. Today, we saw two wooden statues: women wearing costumes from the 18th, 19th, 20th, or 21st centuries, representing the long development period of the Baarnse Bos. Initially, there were four, but two statues were vandalized in 2024.
We continued through the Berceau Baarnsche Bos. This berceau, marked with metal arches, is a walking lane with a canopy of beech and oak trees. It provided shade for the royal residents of Soestdijk Palace, who came here for their walks. At the end, we got a magnificent view of Soestdijk Palace. The Palace is no longer owned by the royal family or the Dutch State. We walked past Soestdijk and waved back to Queen Juliana and Prince Bernard, who celebrated Queensday on April 30th, Queen Juliana’s birthday, on the stairs of the Palace
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We skipped the famous pancake house in Lage Vuursche since we had brought our homemade lunch and coffee. We briefly exited the Utrecht province to enter North Holland at the Gooise Nature Reserve, South. This nature area also features forests, heaths, ponds, and an old sand quarry.
At Hollandsche Rading train station, today’s finish, we were back on Utrecht soil. The elegant Gothic concrete arches are part of this station and have been listed as a national monument since 2001. They were made of concrete due to a steel shortage in the 1930s.
Date
Thursday, March 6, 2025
Distance
8.86 miles
14.26 km
Moving Time
2:52:51 hrs
Weather
8 °C, sun,
light breeze