I like this video in particular, because it showcases exactly what I've experienced in the NL in Noordwijk (pop. 45k) for a conference and on holiday in Enkhuizen (pop. 19k).
In Noordwijk I stayed for a conference at ESTEC in a hotel on the beach promenade. The conference had set up a shuttle bus for us attendees, so I didn't care to even look for a bike. I would've but the weather was ... well, late October on the Northern Sea... And still, from the bus, I saw dozens of cyclists going from village to village along cycling paths.
In Enkhuizen we stayed with two small kids and walked or took the IC train to Hoorn. And although we saw a lot of cars around, we only once had to use one: When my daughter fell on the couch table and the only doctor still open was at the hospital in Hoorn. I later found out that we could've in principle done the trip with the IC train since the hospital is just next to the train station.
And just because I read a few YT comments from Europeans (dunno where from exactly) saying basically: "That's not unusual in Europe" -- uhm, no:
I gew up north of Frankfurt (Main) in Rosbach, what you might call a suburb, Wetterau county. And, yes, I took a public bus to school or would take the bike when it wasn't raining. And, yes, for now about 15 years, the town is limited to 30 km/h, but with virtually no physical traffic calming (with a few exceptions). The streets have filled with cars since the 1990s. So, I would not feel safe to let my kids cycle there the way I did as a kid.
And we spent two weeks of holiday just this month in Allgäu, Bavaria. First, in the small town of Pfronten, that for some reason routes a hell of a lot of traffic right through the middle of town at 50 km/h (which is not just ridiculous, but also entirely unrealistic) with sidewalks sometimes literally the width of a beach towel. And while the surrounding area had a lot of cycle paths, the reason you'd only see quasi-MTBs was clear pretty quickly: Most are gravel and only used by tourists. We've met only a handful of locals going by bike between villages.
For me as an experienced cyclist this wasn't an issue, so yeah, talk about "good/bad" in relation to something. But again: This was only okay with my kids in the trailer not on their own bikes.
And then we spent another week in Sulzberg south of Kempten. We were on a former farm outside of town where literally the only even walkable connection to the town was a road. No footpath. I've checked using BRouter [1] if there was some obscure route off the road that we could've used to get to the supermarket (~4km away). I did not find one.
So, yes, I *am* seriously amazed by the approach to mobility in the NL - in small towns. And although it's far from perfect (NL have scrapped small hospitals in favour of big central ones, which can be a pain, see above), it is still *far* better than the situation in vast parts of Germany and for that matter most parts of Europe.
