The city of Brielle has a place of honor in Dutch history since 1572 when its capture by the “Sea Beggars,” a seafaring nationalist militia, marked a major turning point in the Dutch war of independence.Īlthough now dwarfed by the docks of neighboring Rotterdam Europoort, Europe’s largest commercial port, its neatly laid out bastions and moat are easy to spot from the sky.Ĭompleted in 1597, Heusden can boast today of its impressive, neatly arranged bastions thanks to an award-winning, 40-year-long reconstruction project.īy the 19th century, this North Brabant town’s original fortifications had all but crumbled away. It is also, very fittingly, the site of the Dutch fortress museum.īrielle is a seaport once seized by the Watergeuzen (or 'Sea Beggars'). Entirely surrounded by two lines of fortification and two rings of water, Naarden might just be the perfect star-shaped city. Perhaps the most impressive of the Dutch star cities is Naarden, some 20 kilometers east of Amsterdam. The Dutch Revolt (1566-1648) is the name given to the long years of war that followed the Dutch rebellion against Spanish rule and it left its mark on the urban landscape of a land otherwise devoid of natural fortifications. The Netherlands is a prime destination for those interested in “star city” architecture.

While the list of star-shaped forts in Europe is much longer, we have deliberately focused on those that became home to living communities, all while preserving the original geometrical layout. What follows is a selection of some of Europe’s most beautiful star cities. Successive changes in military technology rendered many of their “star cities” obsolete, but since many of them had by then become civilian settlements, this eye-catching approach to urban planning was not lost to time. Military engineers such as the Frenchman Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban and his Dutch rival Menno van Coehoorn elevated the fortification of cities almost to the category of art. It’s not a coincidence that some of its best and most magnificent examples cluster in places such as the Netherlands and the Rhine Valley, fault lines between warring empires. This style of military architecture would have its golden era during the 1500s and particularly the 1600s, a period in which many parts of Europe saw almost uninterrupted warfare. Llivia: The Spanish town stranded in France

Age of wonders 3, water fortress