Leeuwarden, the capital of Friesland, is a very sociable city with a surprisingly intimate center. Around the old canal area you will find many historical buildings, interesting museums, great shops and lots of restaurants, cafés, bars and terraces. Enough reasons to spend a day in Leeuwarden. View the Waag van Leeuwarden, admire the leaning tower of Oldenhove and experience a day of arts and culture in the Frisian Museum. If you love culture, then you have come to the right place.With more than 600 monuments, Leeuwarden is placed in the top fifteen of Dutch monument municipalities. This is due to a historical town from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The city also has protected townscapes such as the inner city with canals, the Nieuwe Kanaalgebied and the Hollanderwijk. Next to the national monument there are 375 premises which remain features of the city to this day.These monuments include private residences, churches, mills, warehouses, shop-premises, office buildings, parks and statues. Also the quays and pipes in the inner city and parts of the old rampart and canals belong to the monuments. The oldest monuments date back from the thirteenth century; among which are the Grote or Jacobijnerkerk (minster of the Dominicans) with the famous Christian Müller organ and the parish church of Swichum (dedicated to the saints Nicholas and Catharina). The youngest monument is the Burmaniakamp from 1940. During the intermediate centuries the premises have been built like the Kanselarij, the Waag (both from the renaissance period) and mansions on the Tweebaksmarkt, the Voorstreek and the Nieuwestad. The biggest group of national monuments exists of simple private residences and shop-premises. On the Schapendijkje, at the site of the airbase there is a secular crypt of the family Dorhout. Just outside of the city there are two polder mills, the Bullemolen and the Froskepôlemolen.
