Every design for Amersfoort

Have you ever noticed that Dutch maps are, in a sense, measured from Amersfoort? The Onze Lieve Vrouwetoren, known locally as Lange Jan, once stood at the middle point of the Netherlands and is now the reference point of the coordinate grid the national topographical service uses. The church beside it was destroyed by an explosion in 1787, yet the tower survived, and different stones in the pavement still trace the outline of the lost church.

What makes Amersfoort stand out is how much of its medieval shape it has kept. The town grew around the Hof, where the bishops of Utrecht held court, and its first brick wall was later replaced by a wider one. The Koppelpoort, a combined land and water gate, belongs to that second wall, while the Muurhuizen were built along the line of the first. The name itself means a ford in the Amer, the river now called the Eem. During the 1928 Summer Olympics the city even hosted the modern pentathlon.

Today Amersfoort is one of the country's great railway junctions, with three stations of its own. Whichever one brings you back, the old tower is there to say welcome home.