A parkrunners guide to visiting Zuiderpark
One of the great things about the parkrunner community is the sharing of hints and tips that help broaden the running experience. And for some that may include visiting other countries, be that as part of an alphabet challenge — like me — or just generally a good excuse for a short break. This blog post provides lots of information to help you decide if it’s for you.
Zuiderpark is a popular choice as a letter Z, being geographically the closest option to the UK. It’s located at Den Haag — which is how the locals term the Hague — located south of Amsterdam. You can get there via plane into Amsterdam Schipol, which is a major airline hub that serves many of the regional airports to and from the UK. And it’s only a 45 minute flight time from London, in aviation terms just a ‘hop, skip and a jump’ across the channel.
For our trip we choose to drive. In practical terms it’s a four and a half to five hour driving time from Calais to the Hague, all motorway based. Expect to experience some heavier traffic as you go around the ring roads of Antwerp and Rotterdam, and do use Sat Nav with real time updates as there are a series of interconnecting roads to help keep the inter-city traffic flowing. Also be aware that the service stations charge you to use the loo, so it’s worth having a few coins handy when stopping, although there is a contact less option available. Slightly bizarrely when you pay then you get a voucher — for the same amount that you paid of 80–90 cents — that you can then spend in the shop. Basically it’s free to customers, but in a slightly over engineered way of doing things.
And if you want to be truly eco-friendly then there are sea crossings from the eastern side of the UK into Hook of Holland, which is only 18km from Zuiderpark. Ideal if you fancy travelling by bike on that ferry route. And nearly all the local roads have cycle lanes so it’s quite safe getting around on two wheels, and very much how the locals do it.
The Hague has plenty of options for places to stay. It’s a major international business centre and as a result has plenty of hotels and AirBnB options. One couple we met were staying out at the coast, which is only a few miles from the city. The advantage of staying in the Hague is that you have a short transfer time to Zuiderpark on the Saturday morning, which you can do either on public transport, by bike or as a warm-up run.
The alternative is to stay in the larger cities of Amsterdam or Rotterdam. That would mean getting a train into Den Haag central station on the Saturday morning. Aim to be there between 8am to 8.30am to allow the connection time to Zuiderpark. The transport network is reliable and with some planning (and setting of alarm clocks) is another option from further away. But my preference would be staying local to the Hague, and that’s basically because there’s so much to do and it’s so easy getting around on public transport.
Let me explain how joined up the public transport system is, as it’s far superior to anything in the UK (apart from London). Basically all modes of transport (train, bus, tram) are digitally connected. What that means is that you can use your bank card or phone payment wallet to tap in — when you board — and tap out — when you get-off.
The digital reader gives one beep when you enter and two beeps when you exit. The fare is automatically calculated based on the number of journeys made and the distance travelled, up to a daily fare cap. You don’t need to buy tickets, top-up pre-pay cards or get travel passes as it all gets worked out based on actual usage. So you never over pay or have unused credit.
The second advantage of all this digital connectivity is the amount of travel information that’s made available. There are real time displays at all the tram stops, dual language audio visual displays whilst travelling on the buses, trams and trains — that help tell you when you get to your destination.
And best of all, the travel apps like Google Maps have access to all the same information.
So when making a journey, put the destination into your phone app and as it will know your current location it will gives the estimated travel times across the different modes across the end-to-end journey (walking time, waiting time, travelling time etc.) That’s very neat, and of course the app can continue to monitor your location as you travel giving notifications to help you get to your location.
The one thing to remember is to set mobile roaming so that you always have signal (without having to rely on finding wi-fi). There is a cost to that for most UK phone packages but it’s definitely worth it when travelling in new ways.
In terms of things to do in the Hague then there are over 1,000 restaurants listed on Trip Advisor, so every type of cuisine is available. We didn’t book a table for dinner as there was so much choice. And the city centre has plenty of supermarkets that cater for locals so you can easily pick-up snacks, and if you have catering facilities in your apartment or hotel then self-catering is also an easy option. We had a cool bag with us for travelling and picked up enough stuff for a lovely picnic for the journey home which was really convenient.
I would recommend doing a walking tour to get to know the city. There’s some history to the location and it’s the home of the Dutch Parliament and the working residency for the monarch. We did a trip with a lovely local lady called Els. It’s a couple of hours and gives you an authentic feel for the city. On our tour we even walked past the Dutch prime minister near the parliament buildings, who it transpired the tour guide knew as he lives locally. A real ‘small world’ moment.
Generally these are small group based — we had six on our tour — and given that so many local households are dual language then English is widely spoken fluently. So no fiddling with translation earpieces like you get on some bus tours
You need to book these trips in advance — here’s the link for Els. Be aware it’s marketed a ‘free’ tour which means you decide how much to pay at the end of the tour as a tip. So don’t forget to have some cash!
And finally, what’s about getting to Zuiderpark on the day?
We left our city centre hotel at around 8am and it was a 20 minute travel time to the park entrance. That was plenty of time as the event volunteer team only really started sorting things out after 8.30am. There’s plenty of travel planning information on the parkrun event web site and facebook page. The park itself is a large sports campus and whilst it’s not widely advertised, there is plenty of parking adjacent to the sports centres. I wouldn’t recommend driving — given how easy it is to use public transport — so just jump on the number 9 tram and pay-as-you go.
There are 5 trams an hour on a Saturday morning so the longest you will have to wait is around ten minutes. It really is that simple, and I’m sure there will be plenty of the UK park run tourists doing the same thing if you need any moral support. As we all know, everyone who is part of our community is willing to help.
If you have enjoyed reading this post and it has inspired you to do an ‘overseas’ parkrun then please show your appreciation by making a small donation to my charity fundraising for British Heart Foundation. Thank you in advance.
