Qualla: Valkenburg aan de Geul

Valkenburg aan de Geul: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Look at any Dutch landscape painting and the geography is the joke: flat, flatter, flattest. So the existence of Valkenburg, a town in the southeasternmost corner of the country crowned by a ruined castle on an actual hill, feels like a clerical error in the national myth. Burcht Valkenburg is the only hilltop castle ruin in the Netherlands. In December 1672, Dutch troops under William III blew it up themselves, refusing to let it fall intact to the armies of Louis XIV. Three and a half centuries later, the ruin is still there, and so are the tourists who come to climb it, then descend into the marl caves dug beneath it, then ride the cable car up the neighboring hill to drink coffee on top.

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Valkenburg aan de Geul: A Town Built on Holes

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The locals call them caves, but they are mostly mines. For centuries the people of Valkenburg quarried marl, the soft chalk-like limestone that gives the region its pale buildings, and what they left behind is an underground labyrinth tunneled directly under the town. Some passag...

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Valkenburg aan de Geul: Cuypers's Souvenirs

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Pierre Cuypers was the architect who designed Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum and Centraal Station, but he spent several years in Valkenburg in the early twentieth century, and the town accumulated his attentions like a hostess accumulates flowers. A Gothic Revival chapel on the Cauberg,...

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Valkenburg aan de Geul: Tulips and Bread

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Valkenburg was occupied by Nazi Germany for four years, four months, and one week. On 17 September 1944, the American 30th Infantry Division liberated the town. The townspeople greeted the soldiers with tulips and bread. That is the entire surviving image: not a battle, not a pro...

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Valkenburg aan de Geul: The Cauberg and What Falls From It

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Cycling decided to fall in love with Valkenburg, and Valkenburg responded by inviting it back. The town has hosted the UCI Road Cycling World Championship five times, a record, most recently in 2012. The Cauberg, that steep hill where Cuypers built his cemetery chapel, has been t...

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