Although most of the travelling within Leeuwarden is done by bike, you can also travel by public transport. The public transport in Holland is pretty good and mostly used for local or interlocal transport.

City busses

In Leeuwarden all the city busses are called “Maxx”. A map of city bus routes can be found here (PDF). You can plan your city bus trip door to door with the 9292ov journeyplanner. A city bus ticket costs € 1,-.

(Inter)local busses

Besides the local busses, there are also busses going to all kinds of local and interlocal towns & cities. Most Frisian villages and towns can be reached by bus, but you can also go directly to Alkmaar, for example. (inter-)local bus jouneys can also be planned with the 9292ov journeyplanner.

Train

The main Dutch train company is called NS (Dutch Railways) and exploits most rail transport in the country. There are also some smaller train companies, like Arriva. It doesn’t really matter which one you travel with, they just have different trains and different lines. From Leeuwarden you can travel directly to Groningen, Harlingen, Stavoren, Rotterdam and Schiphol, but most other popular cities can be reached with one or two change overs.

You can plan all your national train journeys with the NS journey planner, or door to door with the 9292ov journeyplanner. International journeys can be planned with NS Hispeed international train planner.

Train discount card

It is recommended to get yourself a off-peak discount card as soon as you arrive in the Netherlands. With this card you get a 40% discount on all your train journeys after 9.00 on weekdays and during the weekend. This card costs you € 55,- which you usually earn back after only 3 or 4 train journeys. You can get the card at every train station in the Netherlands. More information can be found here.