's-Hertogenbosch (<- no, it’s really called this)…

Yesterday, Graham and I took a bit of a day trip to 's-Hertogenbosch (or Den Bosch as it is know locally).   

It’s a lovely little town about 20 minutes north of Eindhoven.   

Are there many cities whose name starts with a punctuation mark? If there are, I can’t think of any others.  

Den Bosch is a pretty place but it’s also a place that has a rich, if at times disturbing, history.   

A fabulous Gothic cathedral , involved in The 80 Years’ War, The 30 Years’ War,  captured by Bonaparte, and hosted a nearby Nazi concentration camp during WWII.   

Less disturbing is the fact that the city has its own food speciality, the Bossche Bol — effectively a giant profiterole, somewhat larger than a tennis ball, which is filled with whipped cream and coated with chocolate.  Yum!   

Oh, and Hieronymus Bosch was born here too. Hence his name.   

And that weird name? Apparently the city's official name is a contraction of the (now archaic) Dutch “des Hertogen bosch” — 'the forest of the duke'.  They dropped the “de” so the name now starts with the genitive “ ‘s ”.