Travel Tips

I live in a town situated between the cities of Gouda and Rotterdam, where the water runs freely, like in most parts of the Netherlands. So we built dykes and bridges and enjoy our waterways.
The village that translates as NewChurch upon IJssel is a town of approx 23.000 residents in a leafy environment. A lot of those people work in Gouda or Rotterdam, which is in easy reach; there's a motorway and good public transport. Direct trains go from here to Rotterdam, Gouda, Utrecht, Amsterdam and beyond. Buses go to Gouda and Rotterdam.
Nieuwerkerk is also officially the lowest point of The Netherlands; 6.74m below sealevel. There's a dyke to protect the town against the River IJssel. See my Nieuwerkerk aan den IJssel Page for more info.
Come on, step across that bridge and let me show you around...

Over the past 10 years more and more people have fled the big city and moved to Nieuwerkerk. So a lot of housing development has been going on. New, modern houses.
I'm gonna stick to the old village for now, just to show you the beauty of it.
The old village is only small, with one mainroad which has a couple of shops, a steakhouse and an italian restaurant.
Some of the houses have been done up too, so not all is authentic. It's a cosy area.

In the heart of the old part stands this protestant church. As far as churches go here in the Neths; usually 2 services on Sunday and closed to the public the rest of the week.
Too bad really, because it's a nice church inside.
Nieuwerkerk has a few more churches (protestant and catholic) but they all date from modern times and are not so attractive.

The village and surroundings are very green in Spring and Summer and make for good walks. On Sunday shops etc. are closed and you see a lot of people going for a stroll. There are a quite a few small paths like this around and just on the edge of town is an area called Hitland that's bushy and for pedestrians only.
This picture shows the path on the dyke that brings us to the new part of town. On the left is the Zuidplaspolder, a residential area built in the 1970's.

This is the Zuidplaspolder part of town, with its modern town hall.
It became the new centre of the village since they moved the townhall here and reconstructed the shoppingmall a few years back.

So this is the heart of the village, where people meet and shop, where the Fridaymorning market is and where festivities take place.

Let me teach you some dutch; a Reiger is a Heron, a Hof is a Royal Household. Reigerhof goes back to the time (early 1970's) when this whole area was a grassy one, or long before that (centuries back) when it was a swamp! With lots of Herons around.
Then the Zuidplas residential area was built, a shoppingmall rose from the wetlands and someone had the bright idea to call it Reigerhof!
It has a good variety of shops; supermarkets, clothingstores, shoestores, a pharmacy, drugstores and even a bookshop. On the outside it has a postoffice, a cafeteria, a Chinese restaurant and a pub-restaurant.
All you need is here, next to the townhall.

This town is great, but sometimes you get bored and need the big city. Well, the motorway is just around the corner. The A20 is the fast route from Rotterdam to Gouda/Utrecht/Amsterdam.

"Zo oud als de weg naar Kralingen" is what the Dutch say when they mean something is really old.
Free translation: "As old as the road to Rotterdam". Well, this picture shows that Road to Rotterdam. Once it used to be the only way out, that's before speeding was invented.
The 'sGravenweg used to be lined with farms, most of those have been demolished to make way for modern villas. The water runs on both sides of the road and houses are reached via bridges.
The old streetlights are still in place, but highvoltage wires cross them.
Luckily the willows don't give up!
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(This page had been viewed 853 times when I moved it from Homepage to Album...05/06/2006 - 26/08/2006)