Doorwerth

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.

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.

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

 I was back at the castle where the walk started around 6 and enjoyed a meal in the splendid and large garden of a nearby country hotel. Since I had to drive west, I wanted to avoid being blinded by the sun which is so low in the sky at this time of the year and of the day, as well as avoid being trapped in the rush hour. When I left, I just witnessed a big red ball setting in the West.

It was a wonderful day.

 Part of the surrounding dike again

At the back of the Castle