Doorwerth, Down
Memory Lane
I am trying
to make the most of the still warm and sunny days, which come and go, alternated
with wet, windy and chilly days, making clear that autumn is patiently waiting
in the wings. The sunny days are usually balmy and hazy. Many people,
especially the grey-haired contingent with e-bikes, go out for a leisurely
spin, but I prefer to go on foot, last week being the exception. But I may come
to that later.
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| The Castle |
Yesterday I
decided on the spur of the moment to go back to the place of my childhood summers,
Doorwerth. It is a
community near Arnhem, where the woods go steeply down to the flood meadows of
the river Rhine, an abrupt change. We lived on the coast within walking
distance of the beach, so it was easy to exchange our house for a full month
with a house “in the woods”, which it literally was. The free-standing houses, often
with thatched roofs, were built on one side of the wide avenue. Opposite the house
we walked straight into the woods.
An old picture of our family enjoying Doorwerth in 1952. My mother must have taken the picture, which was unusual for her. I am the girl on the left.
Never a fan of the sea and the beach which is
so unforgiving, offering no shelter against the wind or shade against the
burning sun, I really loved the woods. 
The woods. Below, the former ice cellar of the Castle, now a home for bats.
The trees protected me from the sun
which only badly burnt my skin, and also kept me relatively dry from the rain
and sheltered from the harsh winds. The woods seemed mysterious, with hollow
roads, and unexpected gardens which used to belong to ruined mansions. The
woods abruptly stopped and from clearings offered exciting vistas of the flood
meadows and the sun-dappled river in the distance. The hollow roads were and
are very unusual in this flat country, with the exception of Limburg which is
hardly Dutch in my view. They were dark, with a canopy of tall beech trees. I
had never seen anything like it before and was delighted. And there was a real Castle in the flood meadows, surrounded by
dikes flanked with trees.
The surrounding moat, and below the tree-lined dike
The castle was still privately owned and I think
inhabited, so there was no chance to see it well. But all that has changed. Not surprising, as
we are talking about the early fifties of the former century.
The castle,
sheltering beneath the rim of the hills, is now open to the public and has been
restored to its former glory. It houses several museums. It was good being able
to go inside and saunter through the various rooms, go up and down small and
narrow flights of stairs, meander and take it all in. The café in the courtyard
opposite was a bonus, being able to drink coffee outside, avoiding the sharp acorns
falling from the tree.
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| A woman on horse-back coming towards the crossing with the Hollow Road Below: the Hollow Road |
Satisfied I
set out on a walk along a so called “Klompenpad”,
a “wooden shoe” path, so called because those paths usually avoid tarmac and
roads, and use trails through fields, meadows and woods. Wooden shoes are not advisable,
but either walking shoes or boots, or even rubber boots if conditions are wet,
which they haven’t been for some time now. It was a 2,5-hour hike along memory
lane. I felt a child again, rediscovering the hollow road, walking through the
beautiful woods, enjoying the vistas towards the fields and the river, recognizing
a former garden of an estate which remained after the mansion had been destroyed.
It is quite a climb as the incline from the river towards the wooded hills is rather
steep. Good for the muscles which are only used to walks on a very flat beach!
It was so quiet in the woods, although rather late in the day mountain bikers
tried to improve their performance there.
The hill steeply sloping down towards the water meadows and the river
It seemed
not much had changed in all those years. The area is still relatively quiet as
roads like the hollow road which I think were open to traffic, are now closed
for vehicles. But since the area is now hemmed in by new roads, it seems a much
smaller oasis than when I was a child. Perhaps everything is bigger as a child.
Besides, we did not have enough bicycles to go around, so we did everything on
foot and probably did not cover such a large area. It was limitless to us. And
the road which we could just cross on foot to the heath with the ice-cold and
meandering brook, is now a very busy and dangerous road, a main artery. A
fascinating area lay on the other side of that road, with age old oak trees,
called “Wodan’s” oaks.
Part of the footpath
Messenger of autumn
It was a
wonderful day.
Part of the surrounding dike again
At the back of the Castle
