The car puzzle tour through Drenthe is the perfect day out in COVID!
If you want to go on an adventure through the beautiful Drenthe landscape, dolmens, and cute villages then this is your expedition! You will drive along the mysterious dolmens and visit the characteristic “Es” villages on the way. The Es villages are located on the edge of the sandy soils in the Netherlands, and their history goes back to the Middle Ages. These villages were also called “brink” villages because they all have a green area in their center. Cows and sheep used to gather here to eat.
You start the tour in the village of Gees and end in Diever (also known as Shakespeare’s village). Navigation is done with a roadbook which you will get after paying the price of the trip. Furthermore, in the roadbook, you will find questions about the route, riddles, and puzzles in the theme of the Es villages, and a car bingo of everything you encounter along the way. So you have enough excitement for the whole family 😉
You can book a tour here.
We enjoyed it so much we have spent 6 hours on this journey driving through beautiful neighboring villages we did not even know existed…
The tour takes you through Gees, Oosterhesselen, Erm, Sleen, Wezup, Orvelte, Westerbork, Beilen, Dwingeloo, and Diever.
Two days later we had a sunny day again and we decided to go back and spend some more time at the D50 D51 twin Dolmens site near North-Sleen.
D50 D51 twin Dolmens
From Noordsleen, take the second paved (dead end) road on the right into Zweeloërstraat. You will then see 2 hunebeds: first D51 on the left and then D50 on the right of the road. D50 is a beautiful and quite large hunebed. The almost complete ring of 24 large crown stones immediately catches the eye. Some are even larger than the gravestones. There is a picnic table where we had our lunch despite the cold weather.
Orvelte
After visiting the Hunebedden, on the way home, we stopped for a short visit in Orvelte as well, because on the road trip we did not have enough time for this jewelry box.
The village is believed to have originated between the 11th and 13th centuries. The monumental farms and the streets, with cobblestones and old bricks, give the village a unique atmosphere.
