Visiting Duiven Intratuin Christmas World: the Most Magical Christmas Shop in the Netherlands!

Okay, maybe it’s not the most magical Christmas shop in the Netherlands but it’s definitely the most magical Christmas shop in the Netherlands that I’ve ever visited so that’s what I’m going with for the title! Intratuin is a chain of garden centres in the Netherlands and the one in the town of Duiven is huge. Each year they host an incredible “Christmas World” with some of the most beautiful and whimsical Christmas displays along with all the holiday decor you could ever need. Seriously, this place is packed with delightful decor and gift ideas, so if you’re a big fan of the Christmas season like me, then you will definitely want to visit! Find out everything you need to know in this guide.

About Duiven Intratuin Christmas World

So as I mentioned, you can find Intratuin garden centres throughout the Netherlands, where they sell a wide range of gardening and pet supplies, sometimes with small animals like fish and rodents as well. I wrote a blog post a long time ago about the cool Christmas displays at our local Intratuin in Lelystad, but the one in Duiven is completely on another level when it comes to Christmas! According to their website, they are the largest Intratuin in the country and I do believe them. There’s even a quite large café within the centre, along with a children’s playground which I didn’t actually see, that’s how big it is!

We went during their special Christmas World display, which takes place from early October until early January. Also billed as the largest Christmas show in Europe (although I’m not sure how they decide that), this Christmas World is basically just a huge display of all the Christmas items you can buy there, but it’s so incredible that you could easily just visit it as a Christmas attraction, which is what I did – although I did also end up buying a few things as it’s very hard to resist!

What You Will See at Duiven Intratuin Christmas World

When you first arrive you are actually in a shopping centre with a number of different shops, but if you head towards the back (and stay on the ground floor) you will reach the entrance of Intratuin. At first, it seems like a regular garden centre with some Christmas decor for sale sprinkled in, but then you come to the main Christmas section and everything continues to get more and more incredible. Some of the things you will see include:

Decor and Decorations

Of course, this is a shop first and foremost, so you will see all sorts of Christmassy decorations and decor for you to purchase and use in your own home. But instead of everything just being on shelves, the staff have also created LOTS of magical displays to showcase everything that’s for sale, which is just as much fun to look at as if you were going to drive around your neighbourhood looking at people’s Christmas lights.

Here you will find anything you could possibly need to decorate your Christmas tree, as well as lots of different trees to buy, a huge range of wreaths, garlands, lighting decor and basically everything to make your home as Christmassy as possible.

Miniatures

At Intratuin Duiven Christmas World you will also find a huge room that is filled with the largest and most epic Christmas miniature displays I have ever seen! I was honestly in awe of the size of these displays, which you could walk all around and even go up on a bridge over part of it to look out over everything. It must have taken weeks for these wintery scenes to be created and everywhere you looked it was more magical than the last. I took so many photos of the adorable scenes, including some special Dutch-themed ones that included things like a mini stroopwafel store (below right).

While the displays here were more than anyone could possible fit in a house (unless they lived in a huge mansion) everything was also for sale around the edges of the room, so you could easily create your own smaller version at home. They even had a “Spooky Section” with miniatures for Halloween, and part of the display had a cute little spooky area with lots of pumpkins (also below right). Many of the displays featured moving trains and funfair rides, you could easily spend an hour just in this one (huge) room just admiring all the gorgeous scenes.

In the next room, there was even a display to bring to life a miniature version of Efteling, the fairy-tale Dutch theme park I have written about here, with plenty of tiny versions of the famous sights you will see there. Children could actually go under the main display and then pop up under little plastic domes to feel like they were surrounded by the famous frogs at the Efteling sound and light show.

So if you’re also a fan of Efteling, you could even create your own miniature Christmassy Efteling display at home!

Displays

As well as the displays showing how you could style your own Christmas trees, tables and gardens, the entire store was filled with beautiful magical displays that just captured the essence of a whimsical Christmas. Some of these made for lovely little photo ops but mostly they were just another delight for young and old to admire!

The Christmas Show

The final, and possibly most magical part of this Intratuin’s Christmas displays was the official Christmas World section. This area started off with some whimsical little shop window displays (like the tea shop and bookshop below) then headed upstairs as you ascended an escalator surrounded by a breathtaking Victorian Christmas scene.

On either side and in the middle of these escalators were mannequins dressed in their best, with trunks as though they were waiting to catch a train from a station. There were also more delightful shop windows and plenty of owls suspended in the air. It gives a little bit of a feeling of the Hogwarts Express from Harry Potter but with a Victorian-era spin and no actual trademarked items or characters.

Upstairs there were more beautiful displays, including one that showed the interior of a Victorian-style train, with moving images in the windows so it looked like the beautiful train was chugging through a snowy landscape (the photo at the beginning of this section). There were plenty more Christmas tree decorations up here, along with other Christmas home decor, and some open window-like sections where you could actually look down over the escalator display from above.

Getting to Duiven Intratuin Christmas World and Tips for Visiting

Unfortunately, Duiven isn’t the easiest place to get to from Amsterdam, as it’s located a bit outside of the city of Arnhem, which is already about an hour and a half from Amsterdam if you’re driving. There is a train station in Duiven if you want to visit via public transport, but the Intratuin is on the opposite side of town on the outskirts, and Google Maps estimates that it’s a 35-40 minute walk from the station to the Intratuin. It’s only a 7-minute drive though, so you could perhaps get a taxi. Luckily, it’s only about an hour and 20 minutes to get to Duiven train station from Amsterdam by train, so if you don’t mind walking or getting a taxi, and paying for the train journeys, then it is doable.

If you do have a car then you can drive and park for free, although we found that the huge carpark plus the overflow carparks were incredibly busy even when we visited on a weekday. I hate to imagine how busy they get on weekends!

The Duiven Intratuin website also recommends visiting later in the afternoons on weekdays to avoid crowds, or during one of their late-night shopping evenings, if that works with your mode of transport.

I would also recommend stopping off for something to eat at the cafe so you can have a rest and recover. The place is huge and quite tiring to walk around – even more so than the Amsterdam IKEA! We actually spent around four hours wandering around and having lunch, so make sure you factor in enough time to see everything. But no matter how you choose to get there or how long you decide to stay, if you’re looking for a magical Christmas experience and more Christmassy things to buy than you can poke a stick at, you will love visiting!

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