Weekend getaway at Leeuwarden, Netherlands

I spent one weekend at Leeuwarden out of nowhere. I was just looking for a place to stay for a weekend getaway and wanted to go somewhere north of the Netherlands. I was trying different cities in Friesland area and I was brought to this city because there are interesting places that I could visit. Leeuwarden is the provincial capital of Friesland. Most people here speak the Frisian language.

I live in Amsterdam so going to Leeuwarden is a 2h 30m commute for me via train. It was quite busy when I was travelling there on 30th July. I stayed in an Airbnb called Jabixhus Guesthouse for one night. The place is fully-furnished and I really liked the bathroom, with free organic soap. The bedroom is also nice and quiet. The host was kind so we had a little chitchat. She also gave me a map of Leeuwarden and she showed me some places that I might be interested to visit. The place where I stayed is just a 15 minute walk from the city center. There are nice sights around so I enjoy looking at the canals and other infrastructures.

Leeuwarden Map

Graffiti

The city has really interesting arts and history too. I was really captivated by the graffiti arts. I just found them while walking around to explore the place more. Then I saw a street with mural paintings and went inside to discover more drawings in there. There are arts on sidewalks too so I enjoyed just walking and appreciating all the drawings I see. Some buildings have mural paintings too that attract the attention of other tourists who would stop for a moment to take photos. I realized that Frisians are artists and I really like that thought.

I also visited two famous museums in the city. I reserved an appointment online and since I have a museum card, I'm able to go to the museums for free. Normally they would cost around €17-€20.

Fries Museum

https://www.friesmuseum.nl/

I went to Fries Museum to see more arts and history about Friesland. There are also old items from the war in the museum. I like reading the stories of some prominent people from centuries ago.

There's an exhibition with the title "a journey through emotions" which was inspired by the phrase "Your silence will not protect you" by Carribean-American author Audre Lorde. The artist Afra Eisma (1993) created colourful artworks about love, anger and anything in between to bring the visitors to another realm based on this topic. One note says that this means that we should not suppress our emotions, but we should express them and use them to achieve something positive. I like it because I visited the museum during the days when I was having a bad time. It opened my eyes to go back to being my optimistic self. And it made me realize that I should indeed express my feelings more and show it to the people I care about. The exhibition also shows that love can be in any form. It can be expressed differently. I think love has a unique story to each one of us. It's written differently so we should not rely on just one love story as basis. Ours might happen in another, beautiful way.

I also enjoyed looking at the black and white photos from decades ago. They give me an insight about how life looks like during those times. I also see some of the works of late Frisian architect Abe Bonnema. I like architecture so I'm always interested to get to know the architect behind the nice infrastructures that I see.

There's also a room for the items from World War II. It includes some old soldier's handbooks, shoes and helmets, vehicles, and rusty weapons. There's also a photo compilation of hundreds of soldiers during the war. The portraits of prominent people during the old days are also displayed in another room, together with other interesting objects.

Ceramics Museum Princessehof (Keramiekmuseum Princessehof)

https://princessehof.nl/

I also went to Ceramics museum that showed me that even ceramics can be translated to arts in different forms. I learned that we can make more arts out of it. They also have collection of several old ceramics that have really high value now. There are artworks made of broken ceramics. I also got to see a room that serves as a work shop for ceramicus.

I like the tiles with drawings in them. There are big jars from decades ago and some kind of masks that are very colorful that shows different faces. There's also a really elegant Ru ceramic object in the museum. It's saying that a similar Ru brush washer was sold for $37 million in an auction in 2017. There's a lot of other elegant and shiny objects in this museum.

Oldehove

I also got to see Oldehove. This is referred to as the leaning tower of Leeuwarden that can be found in the city center. It's an old church tower that was completed in 1532-1533. I think there’s a way to climb up the tower, although I did not get the chance to do it. There’s also a fountain on the ground that looks nice.

Oldehove, the leaning tower of Leeuwarden, July 2021

Saint Boniface church

The Saint Boniface church has a tall tower that can easily be seen. I used it as a landmark when I was going back to my rented place. I've read that this church was built in 1880s. I also really love its architecture and it fascinates me. I didn't have to use Google Maps to go to this place because I was literally just looking at the tower and follow the road to see where my feet goes.

Saint Boniface church in Leeuwarden, July 2021

On the last day of my stay, I decided to just walk around the city again. Then I found this river and park with beautiful nature views. There are many boats too. There are some dogs walking so I enjoyed it so much. I was just following the river trail and ended up in the city center again.

I just kept on walking and didn't realize that I was already heading back to Leeuwarden central station. I passed by some nice canals too.

In front of the station, there's another work of art called People modern artistic white faces statues arts by Jaume Plensa. It's also getting so much attention from people visiting the city.

On Saturday evening, I had dinner at Restaurant ROAST. The service is good because the crews are nice and always smiling. I had a lamb dish with some french fries and iced tea. It lamb meat was tender and the dish has some sausage too. I enjoyed my dinner alone.

Lamb dish at Roast resturant in Leeuwarden, July 2021

I was writing some poem while eating dinner and it was really fun. I like writing down ideas and looking back at them again when I had time to complete it as a write-up. It's nice having some time alone and being able to focus on myself and my aspirations. I was planning to do more weekend trips in other cities within the Netherlands and I’m really looking forward to it.