Muiderslot, a compact square castle with four round towers on the river Vecht near Amsterdam, has been continuously occupied since Count Floris V ordered it built around 1280. In 1296, Floris V was captured during a hunting party by his own nobles, imprisoned in his own castle, and — after a popular revolt threatened to free him — murdered near Muiderberg by a noble named Gerard van Velsen, who stabbed him when his horse slipped during an escape attempt. The bishop of Utrecht immediately tried to raze Muiderslot. He failed. Eighty years later, the castle was rebuilt and its unbroken occupation resumed. The nobles who killed Floris V were later tortured and beheaded in the castle square; their heads placed on stakes at the gate.
The rebuilt castle served as both fortress and seat of justice for centuries. Forty-eight arrow loops, three throwing holes above the entrance gate for hot oil and stones, dungeons equipped with thumbscrews and a rack, and in the South Tower a Vergeetkerker — an oubliette accessible only through a floor hatch, with no windows, no light, designed to make prisoners feel what disappearance feels like. The poet PC Hooft lived at Muiderslot for 38 years until his death in 1647 and wrote a play about the murder of Floris V. He also, on several occasions, reported seeing Floris’s ghost walking nervously from room to room, appearing sad.
Four ghosts are documented at Muiderslot: the sad-looking Floris V searching for something; Machteld van Velsen, said to have been assaulted by Floris and possibly related to his killer; a laughing Englishman in the dark corridors; and a figure with a blue hand, believed condemned for betrayal, identity unknown. In the dungeons: shadow figures, unexplained touches, whispers. The castle has held continuous occupation for over 700 years. What it holds from each of those centuries is harder to say.
Story Source: amsterdamian.com
Address: Herengracht 1, 1398 AA Muiden, Netherlands
Accessibility Rating: Accessible
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What Others Have Experienced
A visitor in May 2026 wrote that the approach to the castle begins shifting your mindset before you even arrive — the surrounding countryside and canal setting ease you into a very different kind of time. The audio tour extended that feeling room by room through the interior.
— from TripAdvisor
One reviewer described Muiderslot as one of the best genuinely medieval castles they had encountered anywhere, with an authenticity that more celebrated sites often lack. Walking through it felt like moving through something preserved in spite of tourism rather than reconstructed for it.
— from TripAdvisor
A visitor who explored the towers found the small, steep spiral staircases and the rooms set up with armour and personal effects of the castle’s former inhabitants strangely immersive. The cramped scale of medieval life became physically apparent in a way it rarely does at heritage sites.
— from TripAdvisor
Entering across the drawbridge after a walk through the village, one reviewer said the setting — completely surrounded by water — produced a visual impact that felt more like a fantasy than a heritage attraction. Very few places deliver the image you imagined before you arrived.
— from TripAdvisor
A reviewer described the audio tour as giving each space in the castle its own story, told in a relaxed and unhurried way that let you absorb the atmosphere without rushing. By the end of the visit, the sense of having briefly inhabited the place felt genuine.
— from TripAdvisor
