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Gouda
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A pretty little place some 25km northeast of Rotterdam,
GOUDA
is almost everything you'd expect of a Dutch country town: a ring of quiet canals encircling ancient buildings and old quays. More surprisingly, its
Markt
is the largest in Holland - a reminder of the town's prominence as a centre of the medieval cloth trade, and later of its success in the manufacture of cheeses and clay pipes. The touristy
cheese market
, held here every Thursday morning (10am-12.30pm) in June, July and August, is a shadow of its former self - and mercilessly milked by the tour operators - but out of these times the Markt is worth visiting. Slap-bang in the middle, the elegant Gothic
Stadhuis
dates from 1450; on the north side is the
Waag
, a tidy seventeenth-century building decorated with a detailed relief of cheese-weighing, with the remains of the old wooden scales inside; the two top floors (April-Oct Tues-Sun 1-5pm, Thurs 10am-5pm; €1.40) show an only marginally interesting display of cheesy matters. To the south, just off the square, the
St Janskerk
(April-Oct Mon-Sat 9am-5pm; Nov-March Mon-Sat 10am-4pm; €1.60) was built in the sixteenth century and is famous for its magnificent stained-glass windows, the best executed between 1555 and 1571 when the country was still Catholic. The post-Reformation windows, dating from 1572 to 1603, are more secular: the
Relief of Leiden
, for example, shows William the Silent retaking the town from the Spanish. By the side of the church, the flamboyant
Lazarus Gate
of 1609 was once part of the town's leper hospital until it was moved to form the back entrance to the Catharina Gasthuis, now the
Stedelijk Museum
(Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm; €2.30), whose collection incorporates a fine selection of early religious art, notably a large triptych,
Life of Mary
, by Dirk Barendsz, and a characteristically austere
Annunciation
by the Bruges artist Pieter Pourbus. Other highlights include a spacious hall, Het Ruim, dominated by two group portraits by Ferdinand Bol, and a selection of Hague and Barbizon School canvases. Gouda's other museum,
De Moriaan
(Mon-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat 10am-12.30pm & 1.30-5.30pm, Sun noon-5pm; free with Stedelijk ticket), in an old merchant's house at Westhaven 29, has a mixed bag of exhibits, from clay pipes to ceramics and tiles.
Gouda's
train
and
bus stations
are north of the centre, ten minutes from the
VVV
, Markt 27 (Mon-Sat 9am-5pm; June-Aug also Sun noon-3pm; tel 0182/513666,
www.vvv.groenehart.nl
), which offers a limited supply of private rooms (?10-15/$16-24/€18-27). The most reasonably priced
hotel
is
De Utrechtsche Dom
, fifteen minutes' walk from the train station at Geuzenstraat 6 (tel 0182/528 833,
www.rsnet.nl/hotel
; ?10-15/$16-24/€18-27); otherwise, try
H't Trefpunt
, Westhaven 46 (tel 0182/512879; ?15-20/$24-32/€27-36), or
De Keizerskroon
, Keizerstraat 11 (tel 0182/528 096; ?20-25/$32-40/€36-45). For
food
, there are literally hundreds of cafes catering to the swarms of summer day-trippers. You can eat cheaply at
't Groot Stedelijk
, Markt 44, among other places;
't Goudse Winkeltje
, Achter de Kerk 9a, has good pancakes; and you can get a decent Indonesian at
Warung Srikandi
, Lange Groenendaal 108. For a
drink
, find your way to the excellent
Eetcafe Vidocq
, Koster Gijzenstraat 8, or check out
Heeren Van Goude
on Zeugstraat, which is usually full of young people. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Netherlands,
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