Giethoorn in Overijssel

26km (16 miles) N of Zwolle

This picture-postcard village has no streets, only canals (and walking and bicycling paths). You get here by hourly bus from Zwolle. By car, take N331 north along the Zwarte Water river to Zwartsluis, and N334 northeast across the beautiful Overijssel lakes. Then leave your car at a car park on the edge of Giethoorn and follow a signposted path to the main canal. Visitor information is available from VVV Giethoorn, Beulakerweg 114A, 8355 AM Giethoorn (tel. 0900/567-4637; fax 0521/360-565; www.vvvgiethoorn.nl), housed aboard a boat at the southern end of this canal.

A rented punt is a romantic way to glide under the village's humpback bridges, past farms, meadows, and enchanting old canal-side cottages with reed-thatched roofs and carefully tended gardens. Should punting seem too much like work, rent a launch with an electric motor and still enjoy the experience in tranquillity.

For an insight into the rural area's way of life, visit the Museumboerderij (Farmhouse Museum) 't Olde Maat Uus, Binnenpad 52 (tel. 0521/362-244; www.oldemaatuus.nl), in an 1826 house decked out with local craft and farming displays. The museum is open May to October Monday to Saturday from 11am to 5pm, and Sunday from noon to 5pm; and November to April Sunday from noon to 5pm, and during school vacations daily from noon to 5pm. Admission is 3€ ($4.80) for adults, and 1€ ($1.60) for children.

Just 8km (5 miles) to the west, the now inland village of Blokzijl, which lost its port to the IJsselmeer project, is a fair monument to past trading, fishing, and whaling wealth, from its days as a member of the Hanseatic League to the 17th and 18th centuries, when ships of the United East India Company sheltered in its harbor while storms raged on the Zuiderzee. A maritime museum, In Den Coop'ren Duikhelm (In the Copper Diving Helmet), Binnenpad 62 (tel. 0521/362-211), takes as its theme the changing seascape of the Zuiderzee-IJsselmeer and, as its name suggests, has a section on diving. The museum is open March to October daily from 10am to 6pm, and November to February daily from 11am to 5pm. Admission is free.

Northwest of Giethoorn stretches De Weerribben National Park, an extensive landscape of reed marshes and moorland crisscrossed by narrow water channels.