Witteveen: Walking Routes and Village History

Witteveen combines walking routes with the history of a planned village. For planning your trip, a village walk, a hiking route through the state forests near Witteveen and the village’s distinctive layout offer practical starting points. If you are looking for a hotel in Witteveen, you can consider in advance whether you would like to focus your stay on a short walk, a hike or an interest in local history.

Walking routes and hiking trails

The Witteveen village walk is a short 4.5-kilometre walk that starts in the village of Witteveen. The route follows both paved and unpaved paths. At a junction, it heads towards Bosplas. You can take an additional loop around Stobbenplas via the route marked with yellow posts. The mix of paved and unpaved paths is also a practical consideration when choosing your footwear.

The yellow hiking route starts at the information board and is about five kilometres long; it runs through the state forests near Witteveen. The distances are similar: 4.5 kilometres for the village walk and about five kilometres for the yellow route. Differences in the routes can help you choose: the village walk includes paved and unpaved sections, while the yellow route runs through the state forests. Check the conditions on the yellow route before setting off.

Dogs are allowed on the village walk but must be kept on a lead. Free parking is available near Witteveen’s football pitches.

Nature at Stobbenplas

There is a birdwatching hide at Stobbenplas. Ducks and cormorants can almost always be seen there; the little grebe, which appears regularly, is considered a special sighting.

The hiking route near Witteveen also passes a more distant sandy track where the rare plants zevenster and dalkruid can be found. So birdwatching is the main attraction at Stobbenplas, while the sandy track offers a botanical highlight.

The history of the planned village

The largest land-reclamation projects near Witteveen began in 1925 and covered 1,700 hectares. The following year, the first residents moved into the workers’ houses.

Witteveen was designed as a planned village. Its built environment is defined by straight streets and houses of the same type, built at regular intervals. This repeated layout gives the village’s origins a spatial dimension: the street plan and house type are just as much a part of the village as the dates.

The former harbour and the nature cemetery also offer further concrete connections to the village’s history. A jetty in the old style was rebuilt at the former harbour in 2010. Witteveen’s nature cemetery has been in use since 2005.

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Go to the main travel overview: Midden-Drenthe.