---
title: Franeker – The Little Town That Could
date: "2025-08-12T20:36:01+02:00"
modified: "2025-10-01T21:16:53+02:00"
author: kims
url: "https://dulcibella.nl/franeker-2025"
categories: Franeker
tags: franeker, planetarium
description: The world's oldest working planetarium is in Franeker, and it's a GREAT place for many bike rides.
image: "https://dulcibella.nl/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Franeker2025-7.jpg"
site_name: Dulcibella
---

# Franeker – The Little Town That Could

## Don’t look up?

So you probably think that nobody ever looked up at their living room ceiling and said, “I think I’ll build a scale model planetarium that will still be running in 2025”; then you are wrong!  Ha!  Else Eisinga said this very thing back in the 1700s, and then he up and built it.  Crazy as it sounds, it still displays correctly today – it’s the oldest [working planetarium](https://www.eisinga-planetarium.nl/en/) **_in the world_**.  And you can visit it for cheap.

Franeker is one of my favorite Dutch towns.  Maybe it qualifies as a city, I’m not really sure how they qualify the distinction in NL.  Aside from the planetarium, there’s a fantastic ice cream shop at the bakery – [Korenbloem Schaffsma](https://www.korenbloemschaafsma.nl) – in the city center – so of course we had to get a scoop while after the planetarium.