The Best Sight in Delft, The Randstad

Background Illustration for Sights

Compact and easy to traverse despite its web of canals, Delft is best explored on foot, although water taxis are available in summer to give you an armchair ride through the heart of town. Everything you might want to see is in the old center, with the exception of the two Delftware factories, which are an additional 15 minutes' walk or a short taxi ride away.

Bagijnhof

The city sided with the (Protestant) Dutch rebels during the Eighty Years' War, and when the (Catholic) Spanish were driven out in 1572, the city reverted to Protestantism, leaving many Catholic communities in dire straits. One group of women was permitted to stay and practice their religion, but according to a new law, their place of worship had to be very modest: a drab exterior in the Bagijnhof, a weather-beaten 13th-century Gothic gate on the Oude Delft just north of the Huis van Meerten Museum, hides their sumptuously Baroque church.

Bagijnhof, Delft, 2611 AP, Netherlands
Sight Details
Free

Something incorrect in this review?