Once in a while I am touring to towns in the neighborhood of Amsterdam
to search for nice houses. Result is always that I will stay in
Amsterdam, at least for now :-).
Yesterday I visited, Baarn, Spakenburg/Bunschoten, Eemnes, Naarden Vesting, Weesp and Loenen aan de Vecht.
Info from Wikipedia.
Baarn
Baarn, the main town of the municipality, received city rights in 1391. The town lies about 8 km east of Hilversum.
In 2001, the town of Baarn counted 22871 inhabitants. The urban area
of the town was 4.66 km² wide, and contained 10076 residences.[1]
The royal family owns several houses around Baarn. The Soestdijk Palace in Baarn was the home of Queen Emma, Queen Juliana and Juliana's husband prince Bernard. Crown prince Willem Alexander and his brothers attended school (Nieuwe Baarnse School and Baarnsch Lyceum) in Baarn when Queen Beatrix (then princess) and her family lived at Castle Drakesteijn in the village of Lage Vuursche, before they moved to The Hague in 1980.
Baarn has nice shopping facilities, mainly located in the
Laanstraat. Other places worth visiting include 'het Cantonspark' (a
botanic Garden) and Kasteel (=castle) Groeneveld. In the north and west
there are polders, and the river Eem.
The woodlands south-west of Baarn, connecting Baarn to Soestdijk, are
called 'Het Baarnsche Bos', have good possibilities for recreation.
To the south lay the connecting road towards the city of Amersfoort,
called 'Breemeentje'. This, approx. 10km long strecht of polder road,
connects the town of Baarn to various roads in Soest and the industrial
area of Amersfoort.
It has a railroad station, with trains going every half hour to Utrecht (38 minutes) Amersfoort (7 minutes) and Amsterdam (about 45 minutes). The A1 highway runs close to Baarn.
Spakenburg
Spakenburg is a village north of Bunschoten on the IJsselmeer
in the municipality Bunschoten, Utrecht province, the Netherlands. It
is one of the few places left in The Netherlands where some women still
wear local traditional clothes.
In the 20th century, the two villages have grown quickly, and since
about 1965 they form one single town, officially named Bunschoten.
Eemnes
Eemnes formerly consisted of two villages, Eemnes-Binnen ("Inner
Eemnes") and Eemnes-Buiten ("Outer Eemnes"). These names referred to
the location of the villages with respect to the dyke of the river Eem.
Eemnes-Buiten received city rights in 1345; Eemnes-Binnen was granted city rights in 1439.
Naarden Vesting
Naarden is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Naarden received city rights around 1300. The town is fortified with walls and a moat, which are, quite remarkably, both complete and in a very good state. More specifically, Naarden is an example of a star fort.
Weesp
Weesp lies next to the rivers de Vecht and Smal Weesp and also next to the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal. The small city has a population of 17.533 inhabitants as of the year 2006. Weesp is famous for Van Houten-chocolate, windmills, the historical centre with its ditches, its Weesper porcelain and the Weesper Mop cookie. The bastion and fortifications are also famous, because they are a part of the Defense line of Amsterdam and the Dutch Water Line. They were never used, though.
Until the early Middle Ages this region was an uninhabited peat bog. Weesp was granted city rights in 1355 and celebrated its 650th anniversary as a city in 2005.
From the late Middle Ages, the Vecht was a defensive line for the
County of Holland and it remained a military defensive line until the Second World War. Weesp was strongly fortified, more than its size would justify - for most of its history it had a few thousand inhabitants.
The defensive lines consisted of inundation zones, which would be
flooded in wartime. Behind them were fortified towns, forts, barracks
and other military structures. The most comprehensive was the Defence
Line of Amsterdam (Stelling van Amsterdam), a circular inundation zone
around Amsterdam, which belongs to the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
After the Second World War, new housing was built in the west and an
industrial zone with a harbour at the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal was
constructed. In the 1970's a suburb was built on the south. Since then
the town has not expanded.
Loenen aan de Vecht (Loenen with Loenerslot)
Located in Loenersloot, close to town
Loenen, on the Vecht, surrounded by lakes, woods and charming villages,
between Amsterdam and Utrecht. The castle is located on the left bank
of the river Angstel, accesible via a wooden lifting bridge.
Although the Van Loenersloot family is mentioned already in 1156, the
existence of this castle is first mentioned in 1258. The Loenersloot
family, who played a rather important part in the life of the village
in the 12th century, built the oldest parts of the castle.
In 1516
the castle was bought by Amelis van Amstel van Mijnden, who already
owned the Mijnden Castle and the Kronenburg Castle. After his death the
Loenersloot Castle was left to his second son, also named Amelis.
The castle stayed in the possession of this family until the 17th
century. That was when the last male descendant of the family died.
There were three heiresses, only one of whom married. Maria Johanna van
Amstel van Mijnded married Pieter Reinier, baron of Stepraedt. Their
son Diederik Johan inherited Loenersloot, but also the estates of
Doddeldael and Ewijk. Due to the number of castles the family owned,
they no longer lived at Loenersloot, but rented the castle out to
different people.
Finally, the castle was bought in 1766 by Hendrik Willem van Hoorn.
These were not good times for the castle, since van Hoorn began to tear
the castle down. Four years later, however, he went bankrupt and
therefore sold the castle to Andries Jan Strick van Lindschoten.
Andries Jan conserved the castle's medieval appearance. The last owner,
M.F.M. baroness van Nagell, created a Foundation for the castle.
Because every family added something to the building, the appearance of
the castle stems mainly from the 17th and 18th centuries, with only the
round defence towers dating from the 13th century.
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