Gorinchem Walking Route, The Netherlands

Having lived in the Netherlands for six years now, I’ve travelled to quite a number of major cities here. But the towns are mostly unknown to me. As such, during the summer, we decided to visit a place I had come across on Google. I had been dying to go on a few long walks immersed in nature, but I was hesitant as walks in pure nature can be a bit boring (especially for a museum lover and city girl like myself!). So a walk with both architectural sights and nature sounded like heaven to me! Gorinchem seemed to fit the bill and we had heard good things about this potential day trip.

Gorinchem is an old fortress town. From the air, it looks absolutely incredible! In fact, there are quite a number of these fortress towns in the Netherlands which I’m very excited about! Meet The Cities has the low-down on other similar towns if you’re interested in those too.

The town of Gorinchem is quite organized and seems to be open to tourists. We parked near the central station and walked directly to the ‘VVV’ which is the Dutch tourist office (Address: Groenmarkt 8, 4201 EE Gorinchem). There, we purchased a walking route and map for 3 Euro. The map is well worth it since it outlines all the main sites on the route and gives you a bit of the history of the main buildings too.

After getting the right information and details about the starting point of our walk, we had a quick bite at the main square, just feet from the tourist office. We needed fuel for our journey!

Thereafter, we began our walk towards the outer wall and passed two beautiful buildings – ‘De Oude Doelen’ and the Military Bakery (see below two photos). The ‘De Oude Doelen’ building dates from 1589 and was where the civic guard once practised their shooting.

The Military Bakery as you might have guessed, was where the military men obtained their muscle power!

We then walked to the toll house dating from 1598. All ships that passed Gorinchem had to pay a fee. At this point the high town wall becomes visible and there’s a slight incline with a couple of steps to get to the top of the wall.

Here you can see just how prominent the wall is!

The walk along the wall is extremely relaxing and highly recommended. We were there at the start of the summer and there were absolutely no tourists (they probably don’t venture this far yet!!). There were only a couple of people out enjoying the sun and walking.  

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Here you can see how beautiful and tranquil this place is! It actually felt like a place where I’d like to retire one day haha 🙂 And we did notice the many retirement complexes which seemed lovely. If only the weather would always be this good!

While doing the Gorinchem Walking Route, you can also take a river cruise to Loevestein Castle. We didn’t do this yet but it’s definitely on our list for next time!

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If you’re interested in learning more about this trip, take a look at this website which gives you more information about the Gorinchem Walking Route (although only in Dutch but you can at least get an idea).

What a wonderful and unwinding afternoon we spent in Gorinchem! Highly recommend the Gorinchem Walking Route if you’re travelling around in the Netherlands. Enjoy 🙂