Laundry & ironing service in Alphen aan den Rijn

Alphen aan den Rijn is one of the oldest places in Holland. The Romans called it Albaniana — 'the white water' — and from AD 40–41 they built a castellum here on their northern frontier, the limes. Where the Rijnplein now is, a fort stood with a camp village around it, with a bathhouse, a small temple and around 500 inhabitants by the late second century. When the Romans withdrew after the mid-third century, the fort fell into ruin.

The Old Rhine — running through the city — was in the early centuries AD a main course of the river, with a flow channel forty to eighty metres wide in places. The Romans built a stretch dam at the Rhine–Waal split in 12 BC to keep water here; many castella along the limes stood beside or opposite a side river. Alphen lay at such a strategic point, where the Kromme Aar drains into the Rhine. The print above, an engraving from 1749, shows the village as it looked in the Republic: a handful of houses on either side of the Rhine.

Alphen long remained a modest place. Only in the twentieth century did it grow — first as an industrial village with shipyards and printing presses, later as a commuter municipality. In 2014 Alphen aan den Rijn merged with Boskoop and Rijnwoude into the current municipality. Archeon, the archaeological theme park on the Rhine, tells the Roman story of the region; walking through it, you stand literally on the same ground as the soldiers of Albaniana 1,900 years ago.

Living in Alphen aan den Rijn means living between Leiden, Gouda and The Hague — well connected, with its own character. The days are full, the laundry as well. We run set pickup days through the municipality — Alphen-Stad, Ridderveld, Kerk en Zanen, Aarlanderveen. Your bag goes along in the morning, and comes back in the evening clean and ironed with the same driver as last time. A modern service in a region where people have lived for two thousand years.