City and nature tour

Explore the Limburg feeling in Voerendaal. The village has a young and fresh character, but make no mistake: Voerendaal is centuries old. The first written mention of the village is on a charter from 1065. The charter states that the St. Laurentius Church was consecrated by the Pope in 1049. This makes it the only church in the Netherlands that has ever been consecrated by the head of the Christian community. However, the finds of Roman buildings, including the remains of a villa near a monumental farm, suggest that the history of Voerendaal goes back much further.

The next attraction on the route is a mill. The Nuth is a round brick belt mill from 1882. Incidentally, the mill was built twice that year, because the original mill was destroyed by an unknown cause. When the miller died in 1971, the mill fell into disrepair, until a new owner had the Nuth restored in 1996. The mill now grinds grain on a voluntary basis.

Halfway through the rural Schin op Geul you will finally come across the Schaloensmolen. The turbine watermill has the status of national monument and was built around 1700 to replace another mill that belonged to Kasteel Oud-Valkenburg. The farmers of the villages Oud-Valkenburg and Schin op Geul were obliged to offer their grain to this ban mill to be ground. At that time the mill still had a water wheel; in 1924 this was replaced by the current turbine. The mill is still operational, although it is hardly used for that purpose anymore. An exhibition space has been created.