Oostvaardersplassen,
wilderness on a drained sea floor.
Forty minutes up the A6 from Amsterdam, on land that was the bottom of the Zuiderzee until the pumps got to it, there is a marsh full of wild horses, deer and eagles. The train runs along the edge of it and does not stop anywhere useful.
The polder that was meant to be an industrial estate.
When Zuidelijk Flevoland was pumped dry, the low corner between Almere and Lelystad was pencilled in for industry. The water got there first: reed grew, geese arrived to graze it, and within a few years the site had become a marsh good enough that the plan was quietly abandoned. The Oostvaardersplassen is now one of the strangest things in Europe — a piece of wilderness with a precise construction date, lying several metres below the sea it used to be part of.
The interior is reed and open water and is largely left alone. What visitors get is the rim: the Oostvaardersveld on the Almere side, with marked paths, screens and hides looking over the wet grassland; the long straight run of the Knardijk, the dike that once divided two polders and now divides the marsh from the farmland; and the Staatsbosbeheer visitor centre towards Lelystad, where the paths into the eastern side begin.
That rim is spread over many kilometres of dike road, which is where a chauffeur earns the booking. The Flevolijn railway from Amsterdam runs right along the reserve and passengers see konik horses from the window, but the stations are nowhere near the hides. By car it is the A1 and A6 over the Hollandse Brug, the bridge onto the new land, about forty minutes from the centre of Amsterdam, and then as many stops along the Oostvaardersdijk — the dike road that runs between the marsh and the open water — as the light is worth.
Early out, dike road, late back.
Wildlife days start before comfortable ones do. Your chauffeur is at the hotel door at the agreed minute with water and chargers on board, and the A6 is empty in that direction at that hour.
The A1 out past Diemen and then the A6 across the bridge into Flevoland. Forty minutes, and the landscape changes completely: dead-straight roads, enormous fields and a sky that takes up most of the windscreen.
The car works along the edge of the reserve — the Oostvaardersveld, the viewpoints off the Knardijk, the paths on the Lelystad side. You walk out, you look, you come back; the chauffeur moves the car to the next one.
Batavialand and the Almere city centre are both a short run away, which makes a natural second half to the day. Otherwise it is back over the bridge, and you are in Amsterdam before the afternoon has properly started.
Four stops that make a day of it.
The reserve is the reason to come; the rest of Flevoland is the reason the day does not end at eleven in the morning.
The accessible corner on the Almere side: footpaths through scrub and reed, wooden screens with slits at eye height, and hides over the water. Close enough to the road that a short walk gets you to a long view.
Konik horses, small, grey and built like cave paintings, and red deer that graze in herds rather than appear as glimpses. They keep the grassland open by eating it, which is the whole experiment in one sentence.
The old dike between Zuidelijk and Oostelijk Flevoland runs along the reserve with water on one side and arable land on the other. Viewpoints along it give the widest views over the marsh, and the wind out there is part of the experience.
Great egrets, spoonbills, geese in numbers that make a noise like weather — and the white-tailed eagles that first bred in the Netherlands in this marsh. Bring binoculars; the car has room for a telescope if you travel with one.
Twenty minutes on, at the harbour: the full-size replica of the East India Company ship Batavia, built in dock by hand, alongside the story of how this entire province was lifted out of the water.
Everything here was built on the new land, and the centre was laid out to a masterplan by OMA with buildings by architects who enjoyed the blank sheet. Strange, useful contrast after a morning of reeds.
By the hour, or as one fixed quote.
Rates are for the whole car, taxes included. Hourly hire begins at a two-hour minimum with forty kilometres included for every booked hour and has to start and end in the same city — comfortable for a Flevoland morning, since the reserve is close and the driving between hides is short.
A half-day here is genuinely a half-day, which is why the two-hour minimum matters less than on longer trips: four to six hours covers the reserve properly. Entry to the visitor centre, to Batavialand and to anything else is arranged by you; we drive and we wait. Booking within twelve hours of pickup adds ten per cent, and cancellation is free up to an hour before pickup.
Flevoland, and the next day out.
Every day out we drive from Amsterdam, gathered on one page.
The city on the other side of the dike — transfers, hourly hire and the run to Schiphol.
Longer itineraries with the same car and chauffeur, planned around what you want to see.
How booking a car and chauffeur by the hour works, with the terms in full.
About forty minutes by road from the city centre: the A1 east, then the A6 over the Hollandse Brug into Flevoland. It is the shortest day trip we drive, which is why many guests book it as a morning and keep the afternoon for the city.
No, and nobody can — the core is closed to keep it that way. Everything happens from the edge: the paths and hides at the Oostvaardersveld, the viewpoints along the Knardijk and the routes from the visitor centre on the Lelystad side. The car moves you between them.
The first hours after sunrise and the last before dusk, when the animals are moving and the light across the water is at its best. Dispatch is happy to set a pickup well before breakfast; that is a normal booking for us rather than an awkward one.
Yes, more than most nature reserves. Several viewpoints are a few minutes from where the car can stand, and the dike roads themselves give long views from the seat. Tell us in advance and your chauffeur will plan the stops around the distances that suit you.
Easily. Batavialand and its replica ship are twenty minutes from the reserve, and Almere's new-built centre is on the way home. Say so when you book so the hours cover it, or ask dispatch to quote the whole day as one fixed amount.
Binoculars, something windproof and shoes that cope with a wet path — the polder has no shelter and the wind arrives straight off the IJsselmeer. Everything else can stay in the boot between stops, including the coffee flask.