Heusden

Heusden was a fortified town on the Maas that lost its function, decayed through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and was badly damaged in 1944 when the retreating German army blew up the town hall tower with about a hundred and seventy civilians sheltering inside. By the 1960s the centre was largely derelict. What happened then is unusual: between 1968 and 1980 the whole town was restored to its seventeenth-century condition using the fortification maps and drawings of the period - ramparts and bastions rebuilt, the harbour reopened, houses restored or reconstructed in the old plots, three windmills put back on the walls. It won a Europa Nostra award and it is a striking place to walk, though it raises the obvious question about how much of what you are looking at is old. The harbour holds historic ships.

What you actually see

• A town rebuilt to old maps - ramparts, harbour and houses restored 1968-1980.
• Three windmills on the walls - put back as part of the reconstruction.
• A working harbour - reopened, with historic vessels moored in it.
• The 1944 tower - blown up with civilians inside, remembered in the town.

When to go

April to October. A day.

Honest expectations

A great deal of what stands is 1970s reconstruction rather than surviving fabric, which some visitors find hollow. The town is small and given over to restaurants and hotels. Parking is outside the walls.

Nearby

Slot Loevestein is north-west; Den Bosch is south-east.