LEEUWARDEN tourist attractions

Leeuwarden is the capital of Friesland and a place that museum lovers will appreciate. There are a lot of them here and they document the rich history of the city itself and the region. There are also interesting monuments, and the symbol of the city is the leaning, unfinished church tower Oldehove.

In the area where Leeuwarden is located today, there was a settlement in Roman times. However, the proper development of the city dates back to the 10th century, when it became an important trade center. The oldest building is the thirteenth century Great Church built as a temple of the Dominican monastery. At the beginning of the 16th century, on the site of a small Romanesque church of St. Vitus Cathedral, a new temple was built. Only part of the tower was built and the structure began to tilt through the unstable ground. Today, the Leaning Tower of Oldehove is one of the city's most recognizable landmarks.

There are also many interesting baroque buildings in the city, such as the former royal residence of the Stadhouderlijk Hof, which now houses a hotel, town hall or a municipal weigh building. Picturesque tenement houses stand on the bank of the Kelders canal, the Central Pharmacy is a famous Art Nouveau building, and the most important neo-Gothic monument, the Church of St. Boniface.

Leeuwarden boasts several valuable museums. The most important of them is the Friesland Museum, which shows the achievements of the region's cities from the Middle Ages to the present day. There is an exhibition dedicated to the famous Mata Hari born in Leeuwarden. The Leeuwarden Historical Center presents collections of documents, maps and sketches from the city's history, while the collections of the Princessehof Ceramics Museum range from Chinese porcelain to Picasso's ceramic works.

The city also houses the Piera Pander Museum, a Dutch sculptor at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Next to the building is the artist's most important work, the Temple of Art. The Dekema State, a small museum located in a noble house on the outskirts of Leeuwarden, is completely different in nature and shows what the life of the Dutch gentry looked like. The Fryslân Natural History Museum with a huge natural history collection also enjoys a great reputation.