Detailed review by koshkha
koshkha
Northampton, United Kingdom96%
For several years I used to go to the Bilderburg T'speulderbos at least three times a year. I worked for a company that used the hotel for training courses and was a trainer on one of their courses and I always looked forward to visits to this really unusual area of Holland. Generally speaking most visitors to the Netherlands don't seem to venture much further than Amsterdam or the bulb fields which is a shame because there's a lot worth seeing if you venture a bit further away.
The hotel is located in a really calm forested area on the edge of the Hoge Veluwe National Park, a place I've been to several times without ever learning how to pronounce it. It's not a conventionally pretty park but it's very interesting in a rough and slightly rugged sort of way (if you can call a totally flat place rugged I'm not sure). The hotel's grounds are rather nice and they can lend you bicycles if you want to go and explore the park. We used to try to do this one evening on each course (if it was light enough) and nearly crippled a few delegates who didn't understand 'back pedal' breaking systems.
The hotel is good for large groups because it's got plenty of rooms, good conference facilities, an excellent and reasonably priced bar, a restaurant with surprisingly good food and best of all, a ping pong table. A few rounds of table tennis do wonders for breaking the ice. There's a small pool and a gym if it's too damp to run around the gardens and I always had a feeling of rather wholesome well-being when staying there.
There's a really nice terrace outside the conference rooms which is great for when your brains full and you need some air, or for the cigarette smokers to top up their nicotine levels. We always considered it quite an advantage that the mobile phone signals in the area around the hotel were awful so we really could get people to pay more attention to what we were teaching.
Rooms tend to be rather basic, as is the tendency in Holland, and the beds are much too soft but that's a problem you'll get in almost any Dutch hotel chain. A lot of bathrooms are shower-only but that again is not unusual. Doors tend to lock with proper old fashioned keys so it's worth reminding yourself to stop and check you've closed it properly.
Food, as I mentioned, was really good and when you stay quite often you soon notice that the chef's got enough imagination to keep churning out something different every time. The presentation was always beautiful, large plates, little decorative touches and a real sense or care and attention to detail.
I doubt I'll have reason to go back to the t'Speulderbos but I do retain very happy memories of the time I spent there.
Bilderberg 'T Speulderbos8
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