HIDDEN GEMS:IN THE 17th century, it was one of the most important sea ports in Europe, giving its name to the southernmost tip of South America – Cape Horn – which was rounded for the first time in 1616 by the Dutch explorer Willem Schouten.
Knowing even that single little fact gives us some sense of the history of Hoorn, a beautiful town on the edge of the Ijsselmeer, the largest lake in western Europe, 35km north of Amsterdam.
During The Netherlands’ so-called Golden Age, Hoorn was the home port of the Dutch East India fleet, which spread the country’s trading influence around the world. That’s why in the centre you’ll find an impressive statue of Jan Pieterszoon Coen, who died in 1629 after a career happily plundering what is now Indonesia.
Dutch influence faded, however. And Hoorn’s days as a sea port were over in 1932, when it was closed off from the North Sea by the Afsluitdijk, which created the Ijsselmeer and famously allowed the reclamation of huge tracts of land.
Since the 1950s, however, this hidden gem has experienced a new lease of life, first as a satellite town for Amsterdam and, during the 1990s, as a chic sailing centre for the well-heeled Dutch middle classes.
If you live in the suburbs of the capital, you can speed along the A7 motorway to your berth on the buzzing central marina in just over 20 minutes, or commute by train every half-hour.
We visited Hoorn for the first time recently when much of the Ijsselmeer was frozen solid, covered with ice-skaters in the afternoon sun – pretty as a picture.
If you visit during spring or summer, be sure to take the vintage steam tram to Medemblik and Radboud Castle. Then cross the lake by ferry to Enkhuizen and on again to Hoorn.
The three towns together are known as the Hoorn Triangle – although the ferryman assured us nobody’s ever been lost!
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