Joure is a town in Friesland. It has around 13,000 inhabitants and is neither a village nor a city, but somewhere in between. The Frisian people call this a Vlecke. Joure is in The Netherlands well known for its Douwe Egberts coffee, production of which started there more than 250 years ago.

Understand

Museumshop De Witte Os in Joure

Get in

Joure has no train station but is very well connected by road.

By car

Joure is easily reached via the A6 motorway from the south (Randstad) and the A7 west-east from Sneek, Groningen and Germany. There is ample free parking in Joure, with a large parking lot at Sinnebuorren.

By bus

There are several bus routes going in and out of Joure all operated by Arriva, most of the important connections are at bus stop Rotonde, about 1km from the town centre. The most important ones are route 95 from Leeuwarden to Heerenveen (1-2x/hour), route 99-199 from Heerenveen to Harlingen (2-3x/hour), and route 315 from Groningen (2x/hour).

Get around

The town centre is basically one long road (Midstraat) with a few short side roads and mostly closed to car traffic, and can be completely covered on foot in less than an hour.

See

Joure has three old churches, all of them along the main street. Most notable is the Hobbe van Baerdt Tsjerke with its early 17th-century clock tower. The rest of the church was destroyed by fire and rebuilt after the second World War.

• 1 Museum Joure, Geelgietersstraat 1-11, ☏ +31 513 412 283. Tue-Fri 10AM-5PM, Sa-Mo 2PM-5PM. A large museum consisting of 10 old buildings, covering everything that makes Joure what it is today; like the history of coffee and tea, old Frisian clocks, a local metal workshop and old (newspaper) printing methods. Also has a lovely shop selling Dutch candy from yesteryear. €5, kids for €2,50. 

Buy

Joure has enough shops for daily groceries and clothing, but for much more than that you have to go to nearby Sneek.

Go next

Visit one of the original eleven Frisian Cities, like Sneek and Bolsward!