Museum visits · Bourtange · Netherlands
The star fortress of Bourtange, on the border with Germany
the bastions, moats and drawbridges of a stronghold of 1593 rebuilt as it was in 1742, with the captain's house, the synagogue and the powder magazine, and in December the Christmas market within the walls
Bourtange is a five-pointed star drawn on the water, in the south-eastern corner of the province of Groningen, a stone's throw from Germany. William of Orange had it built in 1580 on a sand ridge in the middle of the marsh, to cut the road between Groningen, then held by the Spanish, and Germany; it was completed in 1593 by William Louis of Nassau, and that same summer it withstood the siege of the Spanish, who gave up because their trenches filled with water. In 1851 it was decommissioned, the bastions levelled and the moats filled in, and Bourtange became a farming village. From 1967 to 1992 it was rebuilt as it was in 1742: the grass bastions, the moats, the drawbridges, the cobbled streets and the soldiers' houses around the square with its lime trees. Today people live inside, and five buildings are museums with a single ticket. For children there are the cannons on the bastions and the flight over the marsh in Terra Mora; in December, when the museums are closed, the fortress lights up for the Christmas market.
Getting there
- Set the satnav to Willem Lodewijkstraat 33: there you find the visitors' car park and the information centre, which is the entrance to the fortress and where tickets are sold
- The car park is free and the fortress website says you can come here by motorhome too, but sleeping here is not allowed. For the night there is the 't Plathuis campsite, less than a kilometre away, with motorhome pitches, open from 1 April to 31 October. In December, for the Christmas market, no source gives an open place near the fortress: the Westerbroek campsite, on the edge of Groningen, is an hour's drive away
- From the car park to the square it is about three hundred metres on foot; the electric shuttle between the car park and the fortress no longer runs
- Inside the fortress only residents and suppliers may park, and you get up onto the bastions only by the steps
Practical information
Bourtange is visited like a village: you walk around the streets and the bastions, and you enter the museums with the ticket bought at the information centre. In winter the museums close, and the website does not say whether you can walk on the bastions on weekdays in December: ask beforehand.
Duration two or three hours for the fortress and the museums; half a day with lunch at one of the inns on the square, a whole day with the December market, which on Saturday stays open until the evening
Price 11 euros, from 6 to 11 years 6, family 32
When to go from March to November; in December the Christmas market
Suitable for families with children, who find the cannons on the bastions and the duelling room in Terra Mora, and those who love military history; almost all the buildings and the bastions can be toured in a wheelchair, which can be hired for 5 euros. Dogs on a lead are allowed in the fortress but not in the museums, and during the Christmas market they are not allowed in at all
Booking not for the visit; for the Christmas market the ticket is bought online, with an entry time slot
Contacts
Where it is
Bourtange · Groninga
You set off from
Notes
- Museum opening hours: from 28 March to 1 November 2026 every day from 11:00 to 16:30; from 2 to 29 November only on Saturday and Sunday, with the same hours; from 30 November 2026 to 5 March 2027 they are closed
- In winter the information centre opens Monday to Friday from 13:00 to 16:00 and is closed at weekends; from 21 December 2026 to 3 January 2027 it is closed altogether
- The 2026 ticket costs 11 euros, from 6 to 11 years 6 euros; the family card, two adults and two children from 6 to 11 years, costs 32 euros and is sold only at the ticket office. Under 6 years the price list gives no price. Parking is included
- Terra Mora tells the story of the marsh and the fortress: there is the cannon room with the musket duel, and the flight over the marsh sitting on a big bird, with wind and sounds
- De Baracquen is a barrack furnished like the soldiers' quarters in 1742, with objects found during the reconstruction and maps of other fortified towns
- The captain's house dates from 1661, with its original seventeenth century fireplace and floors
- The synagogue dates from 1842 and was a place of prayer until the Second World War; almost all the Jews of Bourtange were deported. The fortress website calls it the only well-preserved synagogue along the border between the Netherlands and Germany
- The new powder magazine held forty-five thousand pounds of gunpowder: thick walls and a roof just resting on top, so that in an explosion only the roof would blow off. Inside, temporary exhibitions and a film about the fortress
- The windmill on the square is a reconstruction of 1980: the original has stood in another village since 1831. Whether it can be visited the website does not say
- From April to the end of September, every Sunday at 15:00, the historic platoon fires the cannon; not in winter. Dog owners should know: the cannon and the muskets can frighten them
- The Christmas market of 2026 is on the weekends of 5-6, 12-13 and 19-20 December, on Saturday from 11:00 to 21:00 and on Sunday until 18:00, with almost a hundred stalls on the squares and the bastions, the illuminated fortress, choirs and street theatre. Entry from 6 years costs 4.50 euros online and 5 at the ticket office, up to 5 years it is free; you enter in your own time slot and stay as long as you like, but with the same ticket you cannot leave and come back in
- The fortress's other events: Magisch Samhain, the festival of magic, on 31 October and 1 November 2026; the Westerwolde museum night on 14 November, from 19:00 to midnight; in summer the battle of Bourtange, the great re-enactment, which in 2026 was on 6 and 7 June
- The German border runs less than two kilometres east of the square
Photo: Gebruiker Bourtange, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Photo: Helfmann, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Photo: JoachimKohler-HB, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Zairon, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: JoachimKohler-HB, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Corradox, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
