Hoorn, Netherlands

25 June 2016, Hoorn

Hoorn, a city in  the North Netherlands. It was one of the centers of VOC, the Dutch Indies Company which had Batavia (Jakarta) as one of its important trading posts. It was easy to reach Hoorn since it has its train station. From Den Haag to Hoorn took about 1 hour 30 minutes, including transfer in Amsterdam Sloterdijk.







 



On the way to the Historical Port, we passed Westfries Museum, where we can see the old Hoorn, showing traces from 17^th centuries including some remains from Jakarta/Indonesia, such as we can see the picture of Jan Pieterzoon Coen and his wife, kris knife from Java and Map of Batavia. Besides that, there was a paintings exhibition by the famous painter Jan Albertsz Rotius, a Dutch Golden Age portrait painter. From his paintings we can imagine how the look of peoples at that time.











Another interesting museum is Museum of 20^th century. Inside the museum, we can see displays of things that looked familiar to us (our generation), but is now ancient for this young generation.

The most interesting site in Hoorn is the historical port, with its iconic Hoofdtoren. Lots of yachts and boats were parked in the port. It was too bad that we did not book in advance for the Halve Maen, so we can not go inside the ship. Halve Maen (Half Moon) was the ship of VOC.


Besides the museums and port, the houses and canals were also nice to see. although it was saturday but shops and museums were closed at 5 pm. So, must managed our time before they're closed.