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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 cafés 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 Eetcafé Vidocq , Koster
Gijzenstraat 8, or check out Heeren Van Goude on Zeugstraat, which is
usually full of young people.
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