Friedrichstadt

Duke Friedrich III founded the town in 1621 intending it as a trading city on a route to Asia, and to populate it he offered religious freedom, which drew Remonstrants from the Netherlands and later Mennonites, Lutherans, Catholics, Quakers and a Jewish community; several of these congregations built their own places of worship, some of which survive. Dutch settlers laid out the town on a grid of canals with stepped-gable brick houses, so it looks unlike anything else in Schleswig-Holstein. The Asia trade never developed and the town stayed small. Punts run trips along the canals in summer.

History

The town was founded in 1621 by Dutch settlers, though by 1630 many of the Arminians among them had already returned to the Netherlands. Between 1633 and 1637 Duke Frederick III sent an embassy to Tsar Michael I of Russia and Shah Safi of Persia, hoping to make Friedrichstadt a European terminus of trade with the East (Wikipedia, Friedrichstadt).

Highlights

• The canal grid - a Dutch-planned town of waterways and bridges.
• The stepped gables - brick house fronts in the Dutch manner.
• The congregations' buildings - places of worship from several communities.
• The punt trips - boat runs along the canals in summer.

When to go

May to September for the canal boats and flowers on the bridges. The town is small and quickly walked. Winter is quiet with limited services.

Before you go

The town is tiny, seen in two hours. Boat trips are seasonal. Several historic buildings are in private or congregational use.

Nearby

Husum lies north; the Eiderstedt peninsula is west.