Although the river Vecht was an important north-south connection since Roman times, this region was mainly a peat bog wilderness until around 1000 AD. Only a few elevated places like riverbanks were (temporarily) inhabited by hunters and fishermen.
That changed when the peat was drained and turned into farmland.
Weesp was granted city rights in 1355, and celebrated its 650th anniversary as a city in 2005. It was probably settled several centuries earlier. Its position on the river Vecht influenced its history greatly. 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 Stelling van Amsterdam, a circular inundation zone around Amsterdam. See the website on its history . The defence line is a UNESCO World Heritage Site .
The old bridge over the river Vecht in the centre of Weesp
After the Second World War, new housing was built to the west, and an industrial zone with a harbour on the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal. In the 1970’s a suburb was built on the south. Since then the town has not expanded. However, a motorway through the fields around the town is now in the planning stage, to connect the A6 and A9 motorways. It was first planned in the 1960’s, and to meet environmental objections, some of it would now be in tunnel. Everywhere in the town you will see posters against this project. On the north side of Weesp, the rail line forms a barrier: there is a small housing estate just north of the station, the rest is open fields. A large housing development is planned here, in combination with another west of Muiden, which would make the area definitively suburban.
The Tourist Office is at Hoogstraat 10, on the Vecht riverbank. Open Monday 13.00-17.00, Tuesday to Friday 10.00-17.00, and Saturday 10.00-16.00. Tel. (0294) 415427; fax (0294) 418702, .
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Weesp
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Weesp - updated May 2024
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Weesp Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
