The quay
The Wolwevershaven stopped being a working harbour in 1963. It is now where historic boats are kept, and there are usually about forty of them on it.
On foot from the door
- Grote Kerk – six minutes east. The tower is unfinished and leans, and both of those are on purpose in the sense that nobody has ever fixed them.
- Voorstraat – four minutes north. It is the longest shopping street in the Netherlands and it takes about forty minutes to walk end to end.
- Drievriendenhof – eight minutes. A courtyard of almshouses from 1623, open in daylight, and almost always empty.
- Dordrechts Museum – twelve minutes north east.
The water
Three rivers meet south of the town: the Oude Maas, the Noord and the Beneden Merwede. Something passes the end of the quay roughly every ninety seconds, day and night. The front rooms hear it as a low hum. People either stop noticing by the second night or ask to move to the back, and both are fine.
The Biesbosch
The waterbus from the Merwekade, eleven minutes away on foot, reaches the national park in half an hour. Go early; the birds do not wait and neither does the light.
Getting here
Dordrecht station is fourteen minutes on foot or six by bus. Rotterdam Centraal is eighteen minutes by train, Schiphol is just under an hour with one change. By car, there is no parking at the house; Veemarkt is the nearest garage.
Tide
The quay floods two or three times a winter, by between ten and forty centimetres, usually at night, usually for about two hours. It is signposted when it is coming. The house is eleven steps up and has never been in it.