Kampen

Kampen is the Dutch city that time lost track of: three medieval gate towers still standing, a river quay lined with unbroken 17th-century warehouses, and a Gothic church large enough to have belonged to a city five times its size.

The City in 60 Seconds

Kampen sits where the IJssel river reaches the lowland plain before emptying into the IJsselmeer. In the 14th and 15th centuries it was one of the wealthiest Hanseatic cities in the Netherlands — its merchants traded directly with the Baltic ports, its quays were stacked with Baltic timber, grain, and furs, and its city council was rich enough to commission a Gothic church large enough to hold everyone in the town twice over.

Then the river shifted, the Hanseatic League declined, and Kampen’s commercial advantage disappeared. The city had no money for grand rebuilding in the 18th or 19th century, so the medieval fabric survived. The three gate towers that once controlled entry to the city are still there, as is the complete wall-and-moat circuit, the medieval market hall, and the quayside warehouses. The skyline of Kampen seen from across the IJssel — towers, spires, step-gables — is one of the most photographed historic vistas in the Netherlands.

One caveat: Kampen is genuinely quiet, especially in winter and on weekdays. Most restaurants close early. It rewards slow exploration, not a packed itinerary.

Route

1. Koornmarktspoort — The Gate of the Grain Market

Time here: 25 minutes

The Koornmarktspoort is the most elaborate of Kampen’s three surviving medieval gates — a late-Gothic double-tower gate from 1465, with round flanking towers, machicolations, and a carved stone arch framing the gate passage. It stands at the edge of the old city centre on the road that leads to the quay, and it looks exactly as it should: enormous, slightly weathered, entirely unrestored to tourist-attraction gloss.

Walk through the gate passage and look up at the stone vault. The gate had a portcullis — the grooves for the iron grate are still visible in the stonework. The passage is long enough that you move through it in full shade even on a bright day. On the far side, the view opens immediately onto the Oudestraat, the main market street of medieval Kampen, with step-gabled houses receding to the south.

Don’t miss: The carved decoration above the outer gate arch — a late-Gothic heraldic shield flanked by stone tracery, weathered but legible. Below it, the original iron hinges for the gate doors are still embedded in the stonework.

Practical tip: The Koornmarktspoort is free to see at any time. The gate interior has limited opening hours for visitors (check the Kampen museum website); the exterior is always accessible.

Walk to stop 2: Walk north on the Oudestraat past the market square to the Bovenkerk — 7 minutes.

2. Bovenkerk (Sint-Nicolaaskerk) — Gothic on the IJssel

Time here: 50 minutes

The Bovenkerk is the reason serious church-goers travel to Kampen specifically. It is a 14th-century Gothic hall church of cathedral dimensions — nearly 100 metres long, with nave piers rising to over 20 metres — built in Westphalian sandstone brought down the IJssel by barge. The scale is wildly out of proportion to the current city’s size; in the 14th century, Kampen had the wealth to commission a church that said: we are a major city.

The interior is unusually complete for a Dutch Protestant church. The choir screen (a 15th-century stone structure dividing the nave from the chancel) was not destroyed at the Reformation — it was repurposed as a wall and survives in fragments. The carved choir stalls are 16th-century work of exceptional quality, with misericord carvings depicting biblical scenes, animals, and daily life. The late-Gothic window tracery in the east end is some of the finest remaining in the Netherlands.

The church contains the Schnitger organ — built in 1676 by Arp Schnitger, whose instruments were the Bach-era standard for North German organ building. This particular instrument is considered one of the best-preserved Baroque organs in the Netherlands.

Don’t miss: The carved wooden pulpit on the south side of the nave — a 17th-century structure with an unusually elaborate sounding board, carved with figures representing the four Evangelists. The craftsmanship is comparable to the best Amsterdam woodwork of the period.

Practical tip: Entry €4. Closed Monday. Organ concerts are held on occasional summer Saturdays — if you can time your visit to coincide with one, the Schnitger in this space is remarkable. Check the church website for the schedule.

Walk to stop 3: Exit north and walk to the Nieuwe Toren on the IJsselkade — 5 minutes.

3. Nieuwe Toren — The Leaning Tower

Time here: 20 minutes

The Nieuwe Toren (New Tower) was built in 1664 as a freestanding belfry on the north edge of the city, separate from any church. It is 70 metres tall, built in brick with a decorative octagonal upper stage, and it leans. Not dramatically — about one metre out of plumb at the top — but visibly, once you know to look for it. The lean developed gradually as the soft peat below one side of the foundation compressed more than the other. Unlike Pisa, nobody has tried to correct it.

The tower stands on the Nieuwe Toren Plein, a small square between the old city and the IJsselkade. From here you can see the tower’s lean against the vertical edge of the adjacent buildings. Walk around to the IJssel side and look back — the tower, the medieval church towers, and the quayside warehouses compose a skyline that is used regularly by Dutch film and television productions as a generic medieval backdrop.

Don’t miss: The carillon bells in the upper stage — visible through the arcaded openings. The tower has a 37-bell carillon that plays automatically on the quarter hour. On summer Fridays, the city carillonist plays a concert at noon.

Practical tip: Tower climb €3.50, open Tuesday–Saturday in summer. The square at the base is a good place to stop.

Walk to stop 4: Walk east from the Nieuwe Toren down to the IJsselkade — 3 minutes.

4. IJsselkade — The River Quay

Time here: 35 minutes

The IJsselkade is the quayside facing the IJssel river, and it is the best single stretch of historic waterfront in the Netherlands outside Amsterdam and Dordrecht. A continuous line of 17th and 18th-century warehouses faces the water, each with hoisting beams projecting from the gable peaks, each with a different arrangement of shutters, steps, and loading doors. Behind them, the towers of the Bovenkerk and the Nieuwe Toren rise to give the scene its vertical dimension.

The river here is wide — perhaps 200 metres across — and busy with commercial river traffic. The IJssel connects to the Rhine; there are container barges from Germany and Belgium passing throughout the day. Looking south along the quay from the Nieuwe Toren you see the riverfront as it has looked since roughly 1680: warehouses, water, and sky.

Walk the full length of the quay from the Nieuwe Toren south to the Cellebroederspoort. The total distance is about 600 metres. Look for the flood markers on several of the warehouse walls — the 1995 high water mark (the last serious Rhine flood to threaten the city) is well above head height on the north-facing walls.

Don’t miss: The Gotische Huis (Gothic House) at IJsselkade 26 — a 15th-century stone building with original Gothic windows and a carved stone facade, now the Stedelijk Museum Kampen (city museum). The building itself is more interesting than most of the contents; the carved tracery in the windows is the finest secular Gothic stonework surviving in Kampen.

Practical tip: The Stedelijk Museum Kampen (in the Gotische Huis) is open Tuesday–Saturday, €7. The quay walk itself is free and always accessible.

Walk to stop 5: At the south end of the quay, turn inland to the Cellebroederspoort gate — 2 minutes.

5. Cellebroederspoort & the Southern Gates

Time here: 20 minutes

The Cellebroederspoort is the southernmost of Kampen’s three surviving city gates, a smaller but more slender structure than the Koornmarktspoort — two round towers flanking a pointed Gothic arch, with a water-gate extension that once spanned a side channel of the IJssel. The channel has been filled in, but the gate still stands over the original road alignment, and the stonework of the flanking towers is 14th-century work of considerable quality.

From the Cellebroederspoort, walk north along the Burgwal — the inner moat of the old city, now a quiet tree-lined canal. The Burgwal runs parallel to the outer wall for about 400 metres, with the Broederpoort gate at the far end. The Broederpoort (1465) is the middle of the three gates: a simpler structure than the Koornmarktspoort, but still intact, still straddling the road, with its portcullis groove and gate arch intact. From the Broederpoort you can see the Koornmarktspoort 150 metres to the north — all three gates visible from a single point is an unusual experience in medieval urban geography.

Don’t miss: The view south from the Cellebroederspoort across what was the IJssel side channel — the flooded fields are now a nature reserve, and on a clear day you can see the great river bend to the east.

Where to Eat & Drink

• Morning coffee: De IJsselkade Café (IJsselkade 14) — right on the quay, good coffee, terrace facing the river; the best morning view in Kampen.
• Lunch: Restaurant De Bottermarkt (Oudestraat 48) — in the old market building, solid Dutch lunch menu with regional river fish; the terrace faces the Oudestraat.
• End-of-tour drink: Café De Beurs (Oudestraat 22) — an old exchange café with good local beers and a long wooden bar; the best place in Kampen for a quiet afternoon drink.

Practical Info

History & Fun Facts

• Hanseatic League. Kampen joined the Hanseatic League in 1441 and traded directly with Lübeck, Gdańsk, and Riga. Its merchants dealt in Baltic grain, timber, and furs; the grain trade in particular made the city wealthy enough to commission the Bovenkerk at cathedral scale. At its peak in the 15th century, Kampen was among the ten wealthiest cities in the Low Countries.
• The river made and broke the city. The IJssel was Kampen’s economic artery — but it was also unpredictable. A series of floods in the 16th century shifted the main navigation channel, making the approaches to Kampen more difficult for large vessels. By the time Dutch overseas trade exploded in the 1600s, Kampen had been left behind.
• The leaning tower’s rivals. The Netherlands has several leaning towers — Oldehove in Leeuwarden leans more dramatically, the Oude Jan in Delft has a measurable tilt — but the Nieuwe Toren’s lean is unusual because it developed quickly, within a generation of construction. The soft Holocene peat beneath the foundations compressed unevenly, and the lean became noticeable by 1700. There are 17th-century complaints about it in the city council records.
• Arp Schnitger’s organ. The organ-builder Arp Schnitger (1648–1719) was the defining figure in North German Baroque organ building. His instruments — distinguished by a particular clarity and brightness in the upper registers — were designed to work in large reverberant spaces, which is exactly what the Bovenkerk provides. The Kampen organ is one of the best-surviving examples of his work.
• Three gates. Almost no Dutch city retains three medieval gates in their original positions and structural integrity. Kampen has them because the city never had the money for major 19th-century urban renewal, and because the gates were outside the main commercial centre and not in the way of anything. They survived by being inconvenient to demolish rather than by any deliberate preservation.
• The 2021 floods. The IJssel was at record levels in 2021 during the catastrophic Ahr Valley floods downstream. Kampen’s flood barriers held, but the water came close. The flood markers on the quayside buildings were updated. The city has lived with serious flood risk for 700 years and has an entirely matter-of-fact relationship with it.