Exploring Arnhem in the Netherlands

The Netherlands was recently host to a media conference I attend annually and Arnhem was the perfect destination to take a day or two to get used to the time change and explore a wonderful European city. I was fortunate to be accompanied by two friends to make my time even more enjoyable.

First arriving at Schiphol International Airport we hopped on the Intercity rail line and made our way to Arnhem, one of the larger cities in the Netherlands with over 150,000 inhabitants in the city that dates back to 893AD if you go with the first mention of the place though Wikipedia tells me that it was “in 1233 that Count Otto II of Guelders gave city rights to the town.“ Once again, as an American I’m left in awe at the history of European cities.

More recently Arnhem is famous for a battle during World War II and the bridge crossing over the Lower Rhine, but we didn’t make a visit to the bridge a priority preferring to instead explore by foot on our first afternoon and by bike our second day. Our local AirBnb hosts, Yuri and Marie who are renovating a lovely early 20th century row house, were quite useful in pointing us to local restaurants and recommendations based on our interest. A priority for me was finding nasi goreng, a favorite dish of mine brought to the Netherlands from Indonesia as well as figuring out how to get some bikes so we could stay active on Saturday and get out of town a bit more.