An Interactive Map of the Netherlands c. 1650

Travel in 17th-Century Netherlands

Travel in the 17th-century Netherlands was characterized by a mix of walking, horseback riding, and carriage and towboat use.

Walking: Walking was a primary mode of travel for the common people. The urban layout of Dutch cities, which were relatively compact and densely populated, made walking a practical choice. For shorter distances, especially within towns, walking was often the most efficient way to get around.

Carriages: For the wealthier classes, carriages were a popular means of transport. The Netherlands, with its growing prosperity due to trade and commerce, saw an increase in the use of carriages among the elite. These vehicles varied from simple, functional designs to more elaborate ones used by the very wealthy. Carriages were not only a means of transport but also a status symbol, reflecting the social standing of their owners.

Roads and Infrastructure: The quality of roads in the 17th century varied greatly. Major roads connecting larger cities were often better maintained, partly due to the importance of these routes for commerce and communication. However, most roads in the Netherlands during the 17th century were simple dirt or gravel paths. They were often muddy and difficult to navigate, especially during bad weather. Roads connecting major towns might be somewhat better maintained, but even these could be rough by modern standards. Paving with cobblestones or bricks was rare and mostly found in urban centers.

Road maintenance was typically the responsibility of local authorities, and the quality of roads could vary widely from one region to another. Wealthier areas might invest more in their roads, while rural or poorer regions had less incentive to maintain them. Roads were sometimes built and maintained through tolls, where travelers had to pay to use certain routes. This was one way to fund their upkeep, but it also meant that only the more frequented roads received attention.

Water Travel: Besides land travel, the extensive network of canals and rivers in the Netherlands was heavily used for both personal travel and the transportation of goods. Boats were an efficient way to move between cities and towns, and for many, this was preferable to the rough conditions of overland routes.

Given the challenging road conditions, waterways were far more important for transportation. The Dutch constructed an extensive network of canals, which were much more reliable for moving goods and people, especially in a country where much of the land was below sea level and prone to flooding. The importance of canals meant that road development was not a priority. Many cities and towns were designed with canals as the main arteries of transportation.

Getting Around in Seventeenth-Century Netherlands; The Trekschuit

When Vermeer was born in Delft in 1632, the city was already more than 350 years old. In those times, Delft was a prosperous, if conservative, Dutch town located in the south of the United Provinces, in the province of Holland. It had survived devastating fires and various bouts with the plague but it boasted a long and distinguished past. It was not only the home of the famous School of Delft of painting, but also a thriving center for the decorative arts: tapestry, silver, and faience, or Delft Blue, (click here for a detailed timeline of Delft).

In 1657, when the twenty-one-year-old painter began to exercise his profession, Delft had about 22,000 inhabitants. It had a near-rectangular shape whose longer side runs roughly from south to north, about 1.3 kilometers long and 0.75 kilometer wide. It was surrounded by medieval walls, eight armed gates to discourage potential invaders, and a navigable moat that branched out to the rest of the Netherlands, one of which led to Rotterdam and, via the Maas River, to the North Sea. Internally, Delft was crisscrossed by a series of canals flanked by tree-lined streets. Foreigners often remarked on the city’s lovely architecture, peaceful atmosphere, salubrious water, and exceptional cleanliness.

Getting around Delft required no particular means. A walk from Vermeer's studio on Oude Langendijk to his father’s inn, Mechelen, where the young painter had grown up, took a bit more than two minutes—another 40 footsteps got him to the front steps of the Guild of Saint Luke, the guild of Delft’s artists and artisans in which Vermeer served two times as dean. To check in on the latest progress of Peter de Hooch, one of the most talented painters living in Delft and probably a friend, required about four minutes. To the house of the renowned scientist and lens-maker Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, about two and a half minutes. One of the longest walks he took was to the Hooikade, where he painted the epic View of Delft from the second-story room of a long-lost inn: twelve minutes by foot.

In the seventeenth century, every ambitious European painter aspired to travel to Italy, and especially to Rome, where Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci had established and practiced the fundamental rules of the art of painting. None of the great masters responsible for the rise of Dutch painting, however, felt the need to go to Italy. Esaias van de Velde, Jacob van Ruisdael, Frans Hals, Vermeer, Jan Steen, and Rembrandt stayed in Holland close to their own culture. Vermeer is documented to have taken various business trips to Gouda, and once to Amsterdam, on behalf of his mother-in-law, Maria Thins. However, it is hard to imagine that the painter, whose work shows an awareness of cutting-edge art movements, would not have traveled more extensively to the thriving art centers of Dutch art—which were relatively near one another—to seek out fellow artists to exchange ideas and inspect their latest works first hand.

Inside a trekschuit

By the time Vermeer became active as a painter, the Netherlands had developed a vast and highly efficient transportation system of canals, which connected all the major cities. The horse-drawn trekschuit was so efficient that one could travel from Delft to Rotterdam in an hour and forty-five minutes, with departures every hour. Travel by trekschuit was immensely popular because other than being reliable, comfortable, and cheap, it was also possible to travel safely in any weather. It was so popular that it is portrayed many times in Dutch paintings, including Vermeer’s own View of Delft, which exhibits the artist’s familiarity, if not sympathy, with trekschuit travel. In the left-hand lower corner of the painting, a typical covered trekschuit rests silently moored along the triangular body of water on the south side of Delft, called the Kolk.

View of Delft (detail)
Johannes Vermeer
c. 1660–1663
Oil on canvas, 98.5 x 117.5 cm.
Mauritshuis, The Hague

Vermeer portrays the front of the boat with a reddish canopy formed by a tarpaulin stretched over hoops that protected second-class passengers from intermittent drizzle and rain. Out of sight, on the back of the ship, was a wooden deckhouse for first-class travelers. Six figures, including an infant, are stationed on the sand quay waiting peacefully for the arrival of the schipper, the horse, and the jagertje who will carry them to The Hague or Leiden. Vermeer must have taken a trekschuit from this very spot many times.In front of the trekschuit, two men speak to an elderly woman, all soberly dressed. Each of the men wears a black, wide-brimmed hat made of felted beaver fur, which at the time arrived in Europe via French traders operating in North America. Such hats were fashionable across much of Europe during the period 1550–1850. In Vermeer’s paintings, they appear in the Officer and Laughing Girl and the Glass of Wine. The soft yet resilient hairs of the beaver could be easily combed to make a variety of hat shapes. A good beaver hat could retain its shape when wet. A detail from the lower left of Vermeer's View of Delft shows that he was intimately familiar with towboat travel. To the left, a nurse holds a newborn infant in her arms. Her deferential body language suggests she is their social inferior. Two elderly women stand face to face to the right and converse as they wait. Both wear similar headgear and blue aprons, which appear countless times in Dutch paintings of daily life. The woman to the left carries a basket. Originally, a man stood to the right of the two figures but it was painted out by Vermeer. Such details remind us that Vermeer was indeed a great painter but one who nonetheless experienced the pleasures and pains of ordinary life like anyone else.

In 1633, a quarter of a million people were transported by trekschuits. The number increased significantly as time passed. The speed was only about 7 kilometers per hour, which was faster than walking, but far more comfortable than by horseback or by stagecoach—the stagecoach was almost twice as fast, but four to five times more expensive. Roads were, being no more than dirt paths, impossible to use in bad weather. If the trip took too long, the skipper promptly refunded his passengers. But fines were also levied for departing too late; running latecomers were left behind. A typical trekschuit could carry about 20 to 30 passengers. Those who wanted a specific seat or seat cushion had to pay a little extra (one penny). In addition to passengers, trekschuit also carried small cargo, letters, and money.

To reach Amsterdam, Vermeer would have taken an early morning walk to the North side of the Kolk, the harbor on the South-east corner side of Delft where towboats departed for Leiden, Haarlem, and Amsterdam every day following strict schedules. The twelve-hour trip was the longest in the Netherlands, but it was possible to disembark at crossing points and continue with the next shift two hours later, perhaps refreshing oneself with a drink at one of the various inns established along the route. Trips to nearby art centers such as Leiden, The Hague, and Rotterdam, were much shorter, making same-day round trips not only possible but easy. Although fashion may have changed from Vermeer’s time, a glimpse of the life on a towboat can be grasped from two drawings made a few decades after Vermeer died.

In 1636, the first regular trekschuiten connection from Delft to Leiden is established over the Vliet river, which flows into Delft from the North. Two years later, The Hague is also connected to this route with a fork in the Vliet at the current Drievliet. The connection between The Hague and Delft becomes the busiest route in the Netherlands. Between 6:30 in the morning and 7:00 in the evening, a tow boat departs from Delft to The Hague and vice versa every half hour.

It is impossible to know how Vermeer mixed with his fellow travelers, but the ride was smooth enough to sketch a few interesting faces inside the covered cabin, or the slowly moving landscape from a wooden bench on the deck, perhaps while smoking a Gouda clay pipe with the boat’s vigilant skipper. Foreign diarists often remarked on the beauties of the countryside. The French diplomat Balthasar de Monconys, who once visited Vermeer’s studio, thought that with its well-tended waterways lined by trees, beautiful groves, and the picturesque windmills, "the land resembles a pleasure garden rather than plain farmland." He also noticed a large number of swans and wondered why they were ignored by the Dutch.

What kinds of conversations would Vermeer have had? There is less than unanimous consent as to the passengers' behavior and the level of their talk. Samuel Pepys (1633–1703), the English traveler-diarist, approved the conduct of his travel companions and was surprised to note that nearly everyone spoke French. Another Englishman described how traveling Dutch women, however, delighted with lascivious and obscene talk. Another related how he had engaged in a delightful conversation with an attractive young Dutch woman who became uncomfortably forthcoming upon their arrival, giving rise to the suspicion that he had been lured into a sex-for-money scheme. And yet, the fact that so many foreigners and Dutchmen of different classes and different geographical origins who intermingled intimately on the towboats must have had an educational effect on the populace and cemented Dutch national identity, already noted for its high level of public education and tolerance. One unexpected consequence of towboat travel was the birth of a literary sub-genre called schuitpraatjes, or "boat talks or boat prattle," which were so popular that they were sometimes even read aloud during the ride. The word "schuit" means a type of boat, and "praatjes" translates to small talks or chats. These boat chats were a common part of daily life, particularly in places with extensive canal systems and waterways like Amsterdam, where boats were a frequent mode of transportation. This setting provided a unique opportunity for social interaction among passengers.

The introduction of steam-powered boats in the early 19th century and the subsequent development of the railway network led to the gradual decline of the trekschuit system. Despite their obsolescence, the cultural and historical impact of trekschuiten remains significant in the Netherlands. The routes and towpaths used by the boats in many cases have been repurposed into roads and bike paths, and some of the old canals still serve recreational purposes.