Around 40 AD, when the Old Rhine river (much bigger and wilder back then) was the north border of the Roman Empire, there was a castellum plus a small settlement at the current city centre's location, called Laurum or Laurium. Artifacts and even ships from that time have been found and some of it is exhibited in the parking garage appropriately called Castellum and in the city museum. Around 270 AD, German attacks made the Romans retreat from the castellum. In the middle ages, Woerden started flourishing again. A moat around the city was built, city walls and later a castle. In 1372, Woerden received city rights.
The municipality of Woerden is very green and, like the rest of this part of the Netherlands, very flat, although the name Woerden derives from Wyrda, as it was called in the middle ages, a word that exists in modern Dutch as wierde, an artificial hill in the landscape to be protected case of flooding. This hill is hardly visible however (the city centre is only about 2 m higher than the surrounding area). The Old Rhine river is quite small, and hardly (if at all) used for shipping, small boats do use it for leisure purposes. The river crosses the city from east to west and around the city centre, splits and comes together to form a circular moat/canal. The river used to cut across the city centre, but this middle branch was 'closed' (filled with earth and made into a street: the current Rijnstraat). The city centre is the oldest part of the city and stayed the only part until the 20th century. After the Second World War, the city started expanding to the east along the river and a new neighbourhood to the northwest. In later decades, the city extended to new neighbourhoods to the east and southwest. The latest addition is a new district in the southeast; building started in the 1990s and is ongoing.
Other populated places in the municipality include Harmelen, Kamerik and Zegveld. Municipalities surrounding Woerden are De Ronde Venen, Breukelen, Utrecht, Montfoort, Reeuwijk, Bodegraven and Nieuwkoop.
Orientation in the city centre: there is a circular ring of roads in the city centre, which is one way (for cars), anti-clockwise. Starting at the castle (three o'clock on the ring), at goes through Plantsoen, Hoge Wal, Oostsingel (these three street are on top of the old city wall and aren't very interesting for pedestrians), then Meulmansweg, past the harbour and library, Kruittorenweg, past the windmill, Wilhelminaweg and finally Prins Hendrikkade. Because of the 'moat', there are only four roads out of/into the city centre: the Oostdam in the east, near the castle, that leads to the train station. The Oostsingel in the north, the Westdam in the northwest (near the harbour) and the Oranjestraat in the southeast (near the mill).
There is a tourist information centre next to the library: VVV Woerden, Meulmansweg 27 (near the harbour), ☎ +31 348 414474 (), . (52.0866,4.8829)�.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Woerden
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Woerden - updated May 2024
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Woerden 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.
