De Hoge Veluwe
Mouflons and Van Goghs
De Hoge Veluwe National Park, located roughly in the centre of the Netherlands, used to be the private property of Anton Kröller, a merchant and shipbroker, and his wife Helene Müller. During the early 20th century the couple acquired the hunting grounds, fenced off the park and brought in mouflons, red deer and wild boar. In 1920 the St Hubertus hunting lodge, one of the country’s most iconic buildings, was completed. These years also saw the start of the construction of a museum to house the artwork that Helene collected in the years preceding the 1920s financial crisis. As a result of the recession, the Kröllers donated the estate and the art collection to the Dutch state in order to keep things together, which worked out fine: the park still exists and the Kröller-Müller Museum eventually opened its doors in 1938.
Today, De Hoge Veluwe offers a great opportunity for a day out. At the entrances in Otterlo, Hoenderloo and Schaarsbergen you will find white bicycles that you can use free of charge to explore the park’s extensive heaths and grasslands, sand drifts and forests. The Kröller-Müller Museum, with its superb Van Gogh collection and many masterpieces by famous modern artists such as Claude Monet, Georges Seurat, Pablo Picasso and Piet Mondrian, is surely one of the most fascinating art museums in the Netherlands, and the St Hubertus hunting lodge is equally well worth visiting. The park closes around sunset, by which time the mouflons and deer come out, and you are well advised to make enquiries at the visitor’s centre about the best places for spotting wildlife.
hogeveluwe.nl