Hook of Holland Ferry

Hook of Holland Ferry Port

The Hook of Holland (locally known as the Hoek van Holland, or corner of Holland,) is a small port town in the south-west of the country. Ferries both enter and leave this industrious port through the New Waterway, an impressively large shipping canal that stretches from the North Sea and into the major city of Rotterdam. This waterway runs perpendicular to a long sandy beach, a popular holiday destination for summer cyclists, and is lined by a narrow promenade from which pedestrians can almost touch the close-sailing ships.

The Hook of Holland is well connected to the rest of the mainland. The epicentre of Dutch politics can be found in the parliamentary buildings of The Hague just 10 miles east, while the capital of Amsterdam is just an hour and a half drive across the A4. There’s plenty of hotspots for history buffs to visit too. One such site is Fort 1881, once manned by the German army in World War II, that still guards the mouth of the New Waterway and is now a museum dedicated to its rich wartime past.

The busy but well-ordered terminal offers a number of daily trips from southern Holland to the seaside town of Harwich in the east of England, a relatively short cruise across the North Sea. It’s a route that has been in operation since 1893, save for brief suspensions during World Wars I and II, and is now used by the thousands of travellers who bridge the Anglo-Dutch gap every year.