01
Getting here
Zandkuilstraat 16, 9724 PB Groningen
By train. Groningen Hoofdstation is the end of the line from Zwolle and the hub for everything north of it. From the station it is fifteen minutes on foot straight up through the centre, or six minutes by bike. Taxis wait on the square outside the main entrance.
From Schiphol. Direct trains run twice an hour and take about two hours ten. Buy the ticket at the machine in the arrivals hall; the gates take contactless cards.
By bus. Several city lines stop on the main road two streets away. Reception will tell you which one, because the numbers change more often than they should.
By car. Leave the A28 or the A7 at the ring and follow the signs for Centrum-Noord. The last part is a residential street with a 30 limit and speed cushions. We have eight parking spaces in the old caretaker's yard, booked in advance at reception; after that it is paid street parking until 21:00, or the park-and-ride at the edge of town with a bus every ten minutes.
By bike. Obviously. The hotel bikes are free, there are sixty of them, and the city is flat enough that the hardest thing about cycling in Groningen is the other cyclists.
02
The street and the water
A quiet residential block with a canal at one end
Zandkuilstraat is a street of brick terraces built in the same decade as the school, with the same bricklayers and most of the same detailing. There are two corner shops, a dentist, a bakery that opens at six and a bicycle repair place that keeps hours nobody has ever worked out.
At the east end the street meets the water. A towpath runs along it in both directions: left towards the Noorderplantsoen park in ten minutes, right out of the city and into open country in about forty. Herons stand on the moorings and ignore everybody.
03
What is nearby
Walking times from the front door, timed on foot
| Noorderplantsoen park | 6 minutes on foot |
|---|---|
| Grote Markt and the Martinitoren | 9 minutes |
| Vismarkt and the Korenbeurs | 11 minutes |
| Groninger Museum | 16 minutes, or 5 by bike |
| Groningen Hoofdstation | 15 minutes, or 6 by bike |
| Noorderhaven quays | 7 minutes |
All of those are walking times, and most are quicker still on one of the hotel bikes. The centre of Groningen is almost entirely closed to through traffic, so you can rely on the times above.
Reception keeps paper maps behind the desk and will mark a route that avoids the building site on the Boterdiep, which has been there longer than the hotel has.
04
Out of town
Twenty minutes and the horizon goes flat
By bike, from the door
- Open polder: 20 minutes north
- Terp villages: 45 minutes
- Wadden dyke: a long morning
- Lauwersoog and the ferries: an hour by car
North of Groningen the land stops pretending. Twenty minutes on a bike gets you among drainage ditches and grazing land, with church towers visible from six kilometres away and a horizon that does nothing at all. Some people find it dull and others think it's the best part of the province, and they rarely change sides.
Further out are the terp villages, the Wadden dyke and, an hour away by car at Lauwersoog, the ferries to the islands. Ask reception for a cycle-network map and they'll mark a route on it, including where to stop for coffee and where the wind will be in your face.