Bilthoven

Bilthoven station is on the Utrecht–Amersfoort line, and Amersfoort Centraal is fourteen minutes away, four trains an hour. That buys you the Koppelpoort, the Muurhuizen wall houses and the Mondriaanhuis before lunch, and you can be back among the pines for an afternoon walk.

From the end of the Boslaan, sandy paths run south-east through pine plantation into the Panbos and onward to the Heuvelrug proper. Free, unfenced, and busy only on Sunday afternoons. Look for the wood-ant nests along the fire breaks — some are a metre high and decades old.

Twenty-five minutes north-west by bike through the Vuursche woods brings you to a village that exists largely to sell pancakes, at around €10 to €14 a plate, beside Drakensteyn castle. Go on a weekday; on Sundays the whole of the Randstad has the same idea.

Landgoed Beerschoten, on the De Bilt side of the Soestdijkseweg, has an information point, a playground, grazing land and a network of easy gravel loops. It is the best place locally to explain to children what a country estate was for, and it links straight into Houdringe and Sandwijck.

Fifteen kilometres north-east, on the site of the old air base, the Nationaal Militair Museum sits under a vast hangar roof with an open airfield park around it. The ride crosses heath and pine the whole way; entry is around €18, and the runway itself is now a nature area.

Unglamorous but honest: the rebuilt precinct off the Julianalaan has a serious cheese counter, a fishmonger doing kibbeling on Fridays, and terraces where the whole village passes at some point on a Saturday morning. Everything shuts by six, so do the shopping first.

From Schiphol, train to Utrecht Centraal (about 35 minutes) then the sprinter towards Amersfoort — Bilthoven is the second stop, nine minutes, four an hour, roughly €3.50. Coming from the north or east, Amersfoort Centraal is fourteen minutes away on the same line. Bus 77 links the station to De Bilt village and back to Utrecht Centraal for when engineering works close the track. Within Bilthoven, cycle: the village is spread over four kilometres of lanes and the forest access points are on the outer edges. Bike hire is available at the station; parking is free in most residential streets and paid near the Kwinkelier.

Nine minutes on the sprinter, with four departures an hour for most of the day and two in the late evening. The last trains back run past midnight, which is what makes Bilthoven workable as a base for city evenings. A single costs about €3.50; contactless bank cards work on the gates.

Very. The forest starts at the end of most streets, the Beerschoten estate has a playground and grazing animals, and traffic in the villa lanes is minimal. There is little in the way of formal attractions, so bring bikes or hire them. Rainy days mean the sprinter to Utrecht or Amersfoort, both under fifteen minutes.

Not by train. Cycle south-west through the estates in about twenty minutes, or take bus 77 towards Utrecht and change. Most people at the campus who live out here ride, because the route through Houdringe and Oostbroek is almost entirely off-road and quicker than it looks on a map.

Not a great deal, and that is the point. A handful of restaurants near the Kwinkelier and the Julianalaan serve until about nine or ten, and there is a small cultural programme at the local centre. For a real evening, take the nine-minute train into Utrecht or the twenty-minute bus to the terraces on Zusterplein in Zeist.