A chauffeur in Laren,
for the art and the evening after it.
A village with a museum, a concert hall, a green full of restaurants and more gallery windows than most cities manage. The car waits where the parking does not exist, and the price is agreed before you leave the house.
A painters’ colony that never quite stopped being one.
Laren has kept the shape it had when artists first came for the light: the Brink as a green heart with restaurants and terraces around it, farm cottages turned into gallery fronts along the streets that lead off it, and thatched roofs mixed in among the villas. Singer Laren sits a short walk away, a museum with a concert hall attached to it, which is why so many evenings in this village end at a time no bus keeps.
Beyond the last houses the ground opens into the Larense heide, the heath that separates Laren from Hilversum and runs on towards Blaricum, whose villa lanes meet Laren’s without much ceremony. There is no railway station here. The A1 is the artery instead: Amsterdam is about half an hour west, Hilversum ten minutes south, Schiphol roughly 22 minutes and 35 kilometres away when the road is behaving.
What that produces for us is a particular kind of booking. Guests driven in for an exhibition opening or a concert and collected at the door afterwards; a table on the Brink with a car rather than a parking space at the end of it; collectors doing three galleries in an afternoon; and the household flights that any village like this generates. For journeys past Het Gooi, see chauffeur service across the Netherlands.
Concerts, viewings, dinners and the flight after them.
Dropped at the entrance a few minutes before the doors, with the car parked somewhere sensible until the applause finishes. Nobody walks back to a cold vehicle across the Brink.
Three or four viewings at walking pace would take a day; by car it takes an afternoon, with anything you buy travelling in the boot and the chauffeur holding the kerb while it is loaded.
The green is ringed with terraces and the parking around it is famously scarce. We set you down at the restaurant and come back when the coffee arrives, not before.
Bags loaded at the door, the A1 westwards while it is still empty, and a departure hall confirmed in advance. Coming back, we watch the flight and meet you inside arrivals with a name sign.
With no station in the village, visitors land at Hilversum or Naarden-Bussum and need the last ten minutes covered. Book on their behalf and the updates come to you as well as to them.
The fairways south of the heath are a short run from here, clubs in the boot and the car back at the clubhouse when the round and the lunch are over.
The airport run, and the evenings priced by the hour.
Laren to Schiphol is quoted as a single all-in amount per car for the 35 kilometres, taxes included. An evening with a concert, a dinner and a late return is usually simpler on the hourly rate.
Hourly hire has to begin and end in the same place, which suits a Laren evening that stays in Het Gooi. A car booked less than twelve hours ahead carries ten per cent extra; cancelling costs nothing until an hour before pickup.
Three details, and the rest is ours.
Curtain-up, not the moment you would like to leave — we plan the car backwards from it. Send it through the booking page or to dispatch on WhatsApp; nothing needs installing.
The full amount per car appears at booking and does not grow afterwards. Paying by card, Apple Pay, iDEAL or Klarna makes no difference to it, and companies can be invoiced instead.
Your chauffeur waits nearby rather than driving off, so a late encore, a long goodbye at the gallery or a second coffee changes nothing. One message brings the car to the kerb.
The rest of Het Gooi, and the city down the A1.
The neighbouring village, its old core and the Gooimeer shore beyond it.
Ten minutes over the heath: the Mediapark, the station and the studios.
Half an hour west — the full city hub, from airport runs to late dinners.
How a car kept for an afternoon or an evening is priced and planned.
About 35 kilometres, or roughly 22 minutes with the A1 and A9 clear; the chauffeur adds a buffer for the Muiderberg and Amstelveen stretches in the peak. The Business Class figure is €120, fixed the moment you book.
Yes, and it is one of the things we do most here. Give us the programme’s finishing time and the chauffeur is waiting close by well before it; if the evening overruns, the car simply stays where it is.
It is, because the stops are short and scattered and the streets around the Brink were not built for parking. Hourly hire from €65 keeps the same car and chauffeur with you, with two hours as the minimum and 40 kilometres included in each.
Regularly, in both directions. It is about half an hour on the A1 outside the rush, so a dinner here and a hotel in the city fit comfortably in one evening. Those trips are quoted as fixed journeys rather than by the hour.
Within reason, yes — say what you are carrying when you book so the right car comes. Van Class has the room and the walk-in height for anything framed or cased; Business and First Class take three bags apiece.
We follow each one separately and send a car to match it. Someone meets every guest inside the hall holding a sign, waiting is free for an hour after each landing, and whoever did the booking gets a message as they climb in.