The Curious Wanderer 🎒

Discover the hidden historic links, museum gems, and curious connections from my hikes and city wanderings.

By Alexander Verbeek

Walking North From Doesburg: Golden Faces, Cold War Secrets, and a Ferry Since 1269

The IJssel Line was meant to flood this entire valley if the Soviets invaded. The Dutch kept it secret. The Russians already knew.

Jun 21 • Alexander Verbeek

Following Craandijk: What a Victorian Walker Left Behind in the Dutch Countryside

Walking the return journey along the Oude IJssel, through mud, wind, and unexpected kindness

Jun 14 • Alexander Verbeek

🎒 Walking the Dutch East Where My Grandfather's World Is Still Visible

🎒 Walking the Hanseatic IJssel: a childhood tree, a historian grandfather, and a garden of lost butterflies

Jun 7 • Alexander Verbeek

🎒 My Grandfather Watched the First Bicycle Arrive. I Walked the City Where They Sold Them.

🎒 A Hanseatic city portrait: Doesburg, the IJssel River, and the Canadian army that passed through

May 31 • Alexander Verbeek

Walking Where Rome Ended and the Middle Ages Began: The Dutch IJssel Trail

Walking the Hanseatic IJssel — the eastern Netherlands that Holland forgot to advertise

May 23 • Alexander Verbeek

The Island After the Trail: Home, History, a Dutch Pope, and a Cat Who Found the Best Sunlounger

After the Atlantic cliffs, the flat land and big sky of Zeeland — and why I find the light here nowhere else on earth

May 16 • Alexander Verbeek

The Fisherman's Trail: A Practical Guide for Anyone Over Fifty Who Is Basically Fit

The complete practical guide: season, gear, accommodation, luggage transfer, navigation, and what to do about blisters

May 9 • Alexander Verbeek

Trail of Tides, Part 7: Walking to the Lighthouse at the End of the World

Rain on the Fishermen's Trail, Californians, a fortress that was closed, a bratwurst stand that was open, and the lighthouse that was always there

May 2 • Alexander Verbeek

Trail of Tides, Part 6: A Frenchman's Iran, Trump's Iran, and a Bridge That Didn't Exist

Wind that turned walking poles into booby traps, a Frenchman who taught in Iran before the revolution, and three Californians who arrived just in time

Apr 25 • Alexander Verbeek

Trail of Tides, Part 5: Squeezing Ten Days Into Nine on Portugal's Fisherman's Trail

The day I left the clifftops behind, followed irrigation channels through rural Portugal, and visited a ruined Moorish castle with a view worth staying…

Apr 18 • Alexander Verbeek

Trail of Tides, Part 4: The Fisherman's Trail at Its Most Beautiful — Porto Covo to Odeceixe

A sprained ankle, cliff-nesting storks, three springs in one year, and a pizza evening that felt like the Camino

Apr 12 • Alexander Verbeek

Trail of Tides, Part 3: How I Ended Up Alone at a Beach Bar When Everyone Else Stayed on the Bus

Walking into Portuguese history before walking the Fisherman's Trail

Apr 4 • Alexander Verbeek