Kasteel de Haar

De Haar is the largest castle in the Netherlands, standing in its own parkland west of Utrecht. A building on the site is first recorded in 1391, when the De Haar family held it as a fiefdom; it passed to the Van Zuylens in 1440, was burned in 1482, and after 1641 slid gradually into ruin. What stands today is largely the work of Pierre Cuypers, the architect of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, who from 1892 rebuilt it into the towered, moated silhouette visitors recognise, laying out formal gardens and a landscape park around it. The grounds are level and open for walking well beyond the castle itself.