The fairly large city of Groningen is in the northeast of the Netherlands. We stayed in a historic building, the Prinsenhof. It was originally built in 1436 as a church, which is where one of the restaurants, the Brasserie, is currently located. In 1569 it was rebuilt into an episcopal palace for the first Bishop of Groningen. Upon his death it was converted into the home of the various Friesland Governors, up until the French Revolution. It had stints as a military hospital and a radio and TV station. In 2012 it was converted into a 4-star boutique hotel.
We had a nice room, but because of the age of the building it does not have AC. This wasn’t an issue for us as it wasn’t warm, but I could see that being an issue in the summer. We ate in both of their restaurants, but the casual Brasserie was better then the upscale (we are trying to get a Michelin Star) Restaurant Nassau. However, neither of them was anywhere near as good as De Betere Tijden! This was one of our two top restaurants on the trip, a must visit if you make it to Groningen. It’s currently #1 on Trip Advisor for a reason.
Hey look, a church tower! This is the view directly from the front of the Prinsenhof hotel. We had the same view over the park from our room as well.
We ended up not climbing up this one, and few people do, because nearly adjacent to the church is this building, the Forum Groningen. The building houses a massive library, a theater, several restaurants, museum space, and the list goes on.
You also get excellent views from the rooftop viewing platform, and it’s free to visit. You are actually above the viewing area of the church tower.
The view towards the east. That’s the Market Square with the City Hall just on the other side of the first building in the foreground.
You can take an elevator up, or just go floor to floor with the numerous escalators. The interior of the space is very cool, and it’s obviously a huge draw for the local youth.
We walked around the library quite a bit, and I ran across this Stephen King display. I’m a huge Stephen King fan, and have pretty much read every one of his 65 books.
The typewriter had a nice touch. If you click on the photo and zoom in you’ll see what I mean. Damn reflections.
We checked out the Groninger Museum, which is free to attend. I liked the unusual painting style by the Italian artist Antonio Mancini. This is “Woman With a Fruit Basket” from 1898. His paintings have a clear square pattern throughout, which you can see more easily by clicking on the photo. Very unique.
I love the colors of this painting, “Church in Oostum”, by Johan Dijkstra, painted in 1922.
They had quite a few paintings by Dutch artist Jan Wiegers. I’m not usually a fan of this style, but the colors really jump out at you! This is “Frauenkirch” from 1920.
Finally, the big deal in this museum is this Rembrandt. This is “The Standard Bearer”, painted in 1636. This painting was held privately for many years until the Dutch government purchased it for $175 million euros in 2022. It’s currently being moved from museum to museum across the country so that every Dutch citizen has a chance to see it. At $175 million, I’m assuming security for these moves is pretty tight!
Since the weather was excellent we toured around the very large Noorderplantsoen park. People were clearly out enjoying the sun!
Even these guys were enjoying the weather.
Next up, we head to Harlingen to catch a ferry to the island of Terschelling.