The awesome city of Gouda is a pearl among Dutch highlights. Monumental beauty surrounds a romantic cheese market in a city that breathes culture and history. This town is among the best the Netherlands has to offer.
Daytrip to Gouda: cheese market, culture, and history
Because of its beauty, Gouda deserves a place of honor on your Dutch bucket list. In this monumental city, you find a triangular market in the middle of which stands the excellently restored gothic Town Hall. This magic building could be the entrance to a wonderland. But it is the decorum of the weekly cheese market. In the streets around the square, you find cheese and chocolate shops. Irresistible ice cream parlors. Vintage liquor shops and countless monuments along the canals and the River Gouwe. Yes, there is a lot of water around Gouda. Rent a boat in the nearby village of Reeuwijk and go off the beaten track. Remember that you are below sea level. The deepest point of Holland, just beside Gouda, is more than 20 feet below the sea.
Daytrip to Gouda: Cheese, Culture History, Monuments, Beer, and Philosophy.
Put a trip to Gouda on your bucket list. Taste Cheese; enjoy Culture and discover the history of Gouda. Visit the well-preserved monuments. Of course, there were fires in the 15th century destroying the city. And people were killed when the city was struck with pestilence and cholera in the 17th century. But Gouda is a good-humored survivor who creates a magnificent church and a gothic Town Hall. At the end of the 15th century, the breweries of Gouda produce 15,000,000 liters of beer a year. In this era, Desiderius Erasmus is born as the second unlawful sun of a Catholic priest in Gouda. After his parents died of pestilence Erasmus is placed under custody. Erasmus’s legal guardian insists that he goes into the monastery of Stein near Gouda.
Daytrip to Gouda, Cheese, Culture, and History. You must see the 72 stained-glass windows
Top six things to do in Gouda:
- Rent a bike (€12,50 a day) at the railway station and discover Gouda and the surroundings. You could make a trip to the 19 windmills at Kinderdijk or bike to Schoonhoven.
- Visit the cheese market on a Thursday morning between 10:00 en 12.30 in the period April till September.
- Find antiques and vintage stuff at the Wednesday market (9.30 – 16.30) in the market square in the center, around the Town Hall. The weekly markets start in the middle of June and end in the middle of September.
- Enjoy a free Sunday afternoon concert in the Houtmans Plantsoen. The first concert is in the middle of June and the last concert is at the end of August.
- The Great Church (123 meters long) was a Catholic Church until the sixteenth century. In the year 1566 Protestants took over the church. They destroyed the statues but preserved the windows. The almost 600 years old stained glass windows are world-famous.
- Sweeten up yourself and visit the Kamphuisen syrup waffles factory in Gouda. Here you find a secret recipe for syrup waffles.
