05/10/2026
Today we departed from Enschede and stopped in Munster for a day trip before making our way back across the country to Rotterdam in the evening.
While in Munster we started our day off with a small tour of a portion of the city where we learned about the history of many of the buildings. During WW2 the majority of the buildings were leveled, meaning the city had to be rebuilt quickly after the end of the the war. Many buildings are rebuilt in the 50s in a brutalist style, to be extremely utilitarian, but some facades were reconstructed in their initial renaissance and baroque styles on top of the modern interiors. In the reconstruction, much of the material from the rubble could be reused to save some material costs and decrease waste from needing entirely new materials.
Churches in the city mostly stayed the same, since they were avoided in the bombing. They weren’t avoided out of a place of kindness, but to serve as a tall landmark for where bombs should be dropped around to hit the cities. Many churches in the city were still affected by the bombing and gouges in the stoned from explosions can still be seen. In the present day many churches have had extensive restorations but most original features can still be seen.
After our tour our group split up to visit some local museums. I ended up at the Picasso museum, with a Jean-Claude and Cristo exhibit, as well as an archeology museum from the university of Munster which focuses on greek and roman artifacts.
