Make a citywalk

City Walk through Dordrecht
The historic heart of Dordrecht lies almost hidden between its mighty rivers. One of the most beautiful views in Holland can be found at the Groothoofd, where the Oude Maas, Noord and Beneden-Merwede meet. Standing on the quay, you look out across one of Europe’s busiest inland shipping routes, with an almost endless procession of vessels passing the city. For centuries, this extraordinary meeting of water, sky and city has inspired painters, writers and poets. The wide rivers beneath the ever-changing Dutch skies create a landscape that is never quite the same twice — sometimes bright and peaceful, sometimes grey and dramatic, but always unmistakably Dordrecht.

The best way to discover the old city is on foot.

Follow the elegant curve of the Wijnstraat, once the domain of wealthy merchants and still lined with impressive historic houses, towards the monumental Grote Kerk, whose great unfinished tower has dominated the skyline for centuries. Or wander along the intimate inner harbours, where the bustle of commercial shipping has largely disappeared but the atmosphere of the old trading city can still be felt. Bridges, quays, warehouses and merchant houses recall the centuries when ships brought wine, timber, grain and other goods directly into the heart of Dordrecht.

With nearly a thousand listed monuments, the historic centre preserves the character of a medieval mercantile city to a remarkable degree. Churches, city gates, warehouses, patrician houses, hidden courtyards and narrow streets together tell the story of more than a thousand years of urban history. It is therefore no surprise that much of Dordrecht’s historic centre enjoys protected status. But Dordrecht is not a city to be appreciated only by looking at individual monuments. Its real charm lies in the whole — the water, the old houses, the harbours, the changing views and the unexpected details you discover simply by walking from one street to another.

So put away the map every now and then, look around — and let old Dordt reveal itself at its own pace.

A Walk through Historic Dordrecht

The walk begins near the tourist information centre and leads towards the historic heart of Dordrecht. Along the way, the city reveals all kinds of unexpected details: old almshouses hidden behind façades, historic courtyards, remarkable gable stones, leaning buildings and narrow streets that suddenly open onto magnificent views across the water.

That is perhaps one of the pleasures of walking through Dordrecht. You never quite know what will appear around the next corner.

Painters discovered that long before us. The combination of the city’s skyline, its rivers and the enormous Dutch skies inspired generations of artists. Aelbert Cuyp, born in Dordrecht in 1620, made the river landscape around his native city famous, and his work later had a profound influence on British landscape painters, including J.M.W. Turner. The basic walk takes about two hours, but if you visit some of the churches, monuments and museums along the route, you can easily spend an entire day exploring old Dordt..

The Grote Kerk
Crossing the Mazelaarsbrug brings us to one of Dordrecht’s greatest landmarks: the Grote of Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk — the Great Church or Church of Our Lady. The first thing you will probably notice is its enormous tower — and the fact that it is visibly leaning.

The history of the church reaches far back into the Middle Ages. A predecessor is traditionally mentioned as early as the eleventh century, while construction of the present church developed over several centuries. What eventually emerged was one of the finest examples of Brabantine Gothic architecture in Holland. The Grote Kerk is particularly remarkable for its monumental scale and its stone-vaulted interior. The choir, executed partly in light natural stone, is among the richest architectural parts of the building.

Much of the fifteenth-century building campaign is associated with Everaert Spoorwater, an important architect from the Southern Netherlands who worked on several major Gothic churches. In 1434 he was commissioned to continue work on the nave and transepts.

Then disaster struck.

In 1457 a catastrophic fire swept through Dordrecht, causing enormous damage to the city and church. Much of the Grote Kerk had to be rebuilt, although substantial parts of the tower survived.

The Tower that Never Reached the Sky
There is a particularly interesting story behind the unfinished tower.Medieval church towers were not simply religious structures; they were also expressions of civic pride and prosperity. Dordrecht was enormously wealthy from trade and intended its church tower to rise to approximately 125 metres.

Money was not the problem.
The ground was.

Building such an enormous stone structure on the soft, waterlogged soil of a city surrounded by rivers proved more difficult than expected. The tower began to lean, and construction of the intended upper sections was abandoned. Today the tower still leans visibly — more than two metres out of plumb — and its characteristic flat top has become one of the defining features of Dordrecht’s skyline.What began as a medieval engineering problem has become one of the city’s most recognisable landmarks.

Inside the Grote Kerk
The interior is well worth taking the time to explore. Among its greatest treasures are the magnificent sixteenth-century choir stalls, decorated with exceptionally fine Renaissance woodcarvings. Other notable features include the eighteenth-century pulpit and baptismal enclosure, the brass choir screen and the great organ. The church also contains windows and artworks depicting important episodes from Dordrecht’s history, including the St Elizabeth’s Flood, the great church fire and the Synod of Dort.

In the Lady Chapel (Mariakoor), the medieval history of the church is connected with the legend of Saint Sura, who according to tradition played a role in the foundation of the church. But eventually we leave the church and continue along the Pottenkade, beside the water, towards the Grotekerksbuurt — the historic street where I live. For me, therefore, this is not merely part of a tourist walk through Dordrecht. It is home. From here we continue along the old inner harbours and through the Wijnstraat, once one of the great merchant streets of medieval Dordrecht, until another of the city’s most impressive monuments appears before us.

• Copyright: pictures from Wikipedia, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License