3 Best Sights in Otterlo/De Hoge Veluwe, Day Trips from Amsterdam

Many connoisseurs rank this as the third most important museum of art in the Netherlands, after the Rijksmuseum and the Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Opened in 1938, it is the repository of a remarkable private collection of late-19th-century and early-20th-century paintings, the nucleus of which are 91 paintings and 175 works on paper by Van Gogh (about 50 of which rotate on display at any given time) that, when combined with the collection in the Amsterdam museum, constitutes nearly four-fifths of his entire oeuvre. Hélène Kröller, née Müller, had a remarkable eye as well as a sixth sense about which painters created art for the ages and through her family firm, run by her husband, the means to bankroll it. For Vincent, fame came too late; for the Kröller-Müllers, however, their great Van Gogh holdings helped make this museum world famous.

But Hélène Kröller-Müller was not myopic in her appreciation and perception. She augmented her collection of Van Goghs with works by Georges Seurat, Pable Picasso, Odile Redon, Georges Braque, and Piet Mondrian. The museum also contains 16th- and 17th-century Dutch paintings, ceramics, Chinese and Japanese porcelains, and contemporary sculpture. The building itself, designed by Henry Van de Velde, artfully brings nature into the galleries through its broad windows, glass walkways, and patios. The gardens and woods around the museum form a stunning open-air gallery, the largest in Europe with a collection of 20th-century sculptures that include works by Auguste Rodin, Richard Serra, Barbara Hepworth, Alberto Giacometti, and Jean Dubuffet. There is a gift shop and self-service restaurant on-site.

Once the private property of the Kröller-Müller family, this is now the largest national park in Holland. It covers 13,300 acres of forest and grassland, moors, and sand dunes, where it is possible to stroll freely, apart from a few areas reserved for wildlife. The traditional hunting grounds of the Dutch royal family, it is populated with red deer, boar, roes, mouflons (wild sheep), and many birds; it is also filled with towering pines and hardwood trees, dotted with small villages (Hoog Soeren, near Apeldoorn, is particularly charming), and laced with paths for cars, bicycles, and walkers, more than 42 km (26 miles) of which are specifically designated for bicycling. Indeed, there are 1,800 white bicycles at your disposal here, free to use with the price of admission (available at the entrances to the park, at the visitor center, Parkrestaurant De Hoge Veluwe, and at the Kröller-Müller museum; return them to any bike rack when you are finished).

There is a landlocked, always-shifting sand dune to marvel at; the world's first museum of all things that live (or have lived) underground; plus an old hunting lodge beside a pond that provides a nice stopping place. At the heart of the park is the visitor center (Bezoekers Centrum), which contains exhibits on the park and an observation point for game-watching. Jachthuis Sint Hubertus (St. Hubert Hunting Lodge) was the private home and hunting lodge of the Kröller-Müllers, a monumental house planned in the shape of antlers, built between 1914 and 1920 by Dutch architect H. P. Berlage around the legend of St. Hubert, patron saint of hunters. Rooms with Art Deco furniture follow in sequence from dark to light, representing Hubert's spiritual development and path of enlightenment from agnostic to saint. Free guided tours of the lodge, which is still used as a residence for visiting dignitaries, may be arranged at the park entrance only.

Inside the visitor center is Museonder, an underground museum, offering visitors a fascinating look at life below the surface, including a simulated earthquake. There are four restaurants in the park: Parkrestaurant De Hoge Veluwe, a self-service restaurant in the center of the park opposite the visitor center (055/820–0410); Café Monsieur Jacques at the Kröller-Müller Museum (0318/591–657); and two teahouses. There is also a summer-only outdoor restaurant in the museum's sculpture park. The best opportunity for game-watching is at the end of the afternoon and toward evening, and park officials advise that you stay in your car when you spot any wildlife. Special observation sites are signified by antlers on the maps provided at the entrances.

"See and buy" is the plan at the Netherlands Tile Museum, where Dutch tiles from as far back as the 13th century—including those old Dutch standbys, Makkum and Delft—are displayed in a former summerhouse in the village of Otterlo, not far from the Hoge Veluwe. For those with a decorative eye, the tiles for purchase in the gift shop are irresistible.