This article is classified "Real"
It is highly improbable that a hitchhiker will ever accidently find him- or
herself well within the built-up area of Waddinxveen. This can only happen
if you've hitched a hike from a commuter from Waddinxveen going home in his
decent car after a day's work in one of the larger cities in the Randstad
[1], or from a truck driver heading for one of the many companies in
Waddinxveen, and you've then accidently fallen asleep. So beware!
Waddinxveen is in no way attractive to tourists, let alone to hitchhikers!
The town is only meant to live in, not to visit. For people who live there
there are a lot of decent facilities. I specifically use the term
"decent", which should be used in the narrowest sense, to indicate a major
deficiency in Waddinxveen. There is hardly any night life. There are but
a few pubs, and no discos or places like that. Most Waddinxveners seem
to be opposed to them. The other Waddinxveners thus have to go out in the
nearby places such as Boskoop and Gouda, and in cities like The Hague,
which are in fact also very near.
Very abundant in Waddinxveen are sporting clubs. Football, field hockey,
tennis, korfball and basketball clubs, to name but a few. For some of
these sports there are more than one club. There are so many of them
because one of the previous mayors of the town liked sport a lot, so he
made sure it was possible to.
There are also a lot of decent schools, elementary as well as high. They
are visited by children from the whole region. This makes Waddinxveen a
perfect place to live for commuters, who have their work in the surrounding
cities, and for their children. There are also a lot of not so old
churches (this fact is connected to the low pub count). Waddinxveen lacks
a major shopping centre; instead it has a lot of small shopping centres,
which some people find cosy. This situation is one of the continuous
worries in local politics. Every four years a plan to connect several of
these centres to one larger one sees the light, but after a few small
changes to streets and builings have been made, all seems to have been
forgotten and four years later a new plan surfaces. Well, at least this
keeps them from doing more harmful things.
The reason for the decentralized shopping facilities lies in Waddinxveen's
past, it's geology and geometry. Waddinxveen began as a long, tape-worm
shaped village, stretched along the Gouwe canal. Hardly a geometry that
stimulates the forming of a centre. The terrain was peat-bog ("veen" =
peat bog) whereon some agriculture but mostly livestock breeding (cows,
sheep) took place. Later the town grew in various directions, but one at a
time. Each new part of town got a new shopping centre. With this growth
started a florishing furniture industry, further fed by the easy import of
wood over the canal. Up to this day this is one of the most important
industries in Waddinxveen. A lot of other companies are established in
Waddinxveen, a Volvo establishment, the Gouda treacle wafer factory, and
the Gouda candle factory to name but a few.
A lot of Waddinxveen lies in quite low polders, mostly below sea level [2].
I would hate to be in Waddinxveen when due to global warming the rising
sea level bursts the Dutch dikes. A vertical lift-bridge, one of a series
of three [3] connects the road from Gouda to Amsterdam to Waddinxveen.
This is the most prominent feature of the town. Although Waddinxveen is
more than 750 years old, it is impossible to find a building or structure
that has been built earlier than, say, the 1910s. So there's not much
historic routes to explore, in fact, none.
Due to the tape-worm geometry, Waddinxveen has two railway stations. One
more will possibly be added in some years to disclose the youngest
business park. And that for a lousy 25,000 inhabitants. The railway line
is single track and clearly not a major one. To leave Waddinxveen to go to
the larger cities of the Randstad, you will want to get to Gouda first,
which offers transportation to anywhere you want. A large highway passes
through an aquaduct underneath the Gouwe and the edge of Waddinxveen. The
ramps to that highway lie pretty far away from the built-up area of
Waddinxveen. When leaving Gouda westbound there is a fork, both in the
railway line and in the highway, offering three directions, to Utrecht, to
Rotterdam and to The Hague. I have given you these directions for you to
know how to avoid Waddinxveen. That is actually not so difficult. You can
easily get off the highway or the train in the by far more attractive Gouda
but to get into Waddinxveen you will really have to make an effort.
This also means that it's a bit hard to get out of it again. That's why I
would advise the hitchhiker to avoid it. There's nothing to see and
nothing to do, unless you live there. You should also avoid it because I
believe the only ways of staying there for the night are to take a room in
the ONE hotel, or find a friendly family to offer you a room for the night.
I don't think you really want to know more about this place, so I'll at
last shut up about it. Just one more remark.
The main thing that Waddinxveen is known for is its entry in the
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Known Galaxy. One of its authors, the
Netherlands most prolific Field Researcher, happened to grow up there.
[1] The Randstad: the conglomerate of larger cities in the mid-west of the
Netherlands: Rotterdam, Delft, The Hague, Zoetermeer, Gouda, Leiden.
Don't be surprized when this actually becomes ONE city in twenty years
or so.
[2] Most of the Netherlands (the name is indicates it) lies beneath sea
level.
[3] The two other verticle lift-bridge are in the more northern Boskoop
and Alphen aan den Rijn.