Enschede, the Netherlands |
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Enschede is a charming city of 150,000 in the province of Overijssel in the eastern part of the Netherlands, very close to the German border and about two hours by train from Amsterdam. Enschede and Palo Alto have been sister cities since 1980.
As far back as 800 AD, Enschede served as a busy marketplace, eventually becoming an important textile center. Today, it is a modern, vibrant, and very livable city, home to the University of Twente. Some of the beautiful old textile factories have been converted to modern uses, and the city boasts a new museum center, a philharmonic orchestra, an academy of arts, and a performing arts center. Enschede is also the manufacturing home of the world-famous Grolsch beer. |
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The city is filled with young people from all over the world who come to study at the university. The lively Old Market Square is host to frequent live musical events and serves as a central gathering place during the warm summer months.
A recent collaboration between Enschede and Palo Alto involves a photography project between the Palo Alto Camera Club and its counterpart, Fotoclub de Zoeker. What began as an online exchange of ideas and photos from each other's cities has blossomed into a real-world exchange with members of the Palo Alto Camera Club hosting two Enschede photographers over the course of a week in October 2025. Another of the recent collaborations between our two cities was the Leendert Overduin Essay Contest, designed to shed light on a little-known hero of World War II. The contest culminated in a student trip to Enschede in June 2023, during which teens from Palo Alto and Bloomington, Indiana met Holocaust survivors, forged friendships with their Dutch and German counterparts, lived with host families, attended a Dutch high school for a day, appeared on the local news, took a day trip to Münster, Germany, visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, and participated in a host of other activities and experiences. For a photo gallery of trip highlights click here. To read our Enschede VP's ruminations on the significance of the essay contest and teen trip, click here. In May 2022, Palo Alto welcomed a delegation of municipal leaders and others from Enschede. Through the decades, Neighbors Abroad has organized many exchanges between high school students from Enschede and Palo Alto, and has hosted visits from Enschede musical groups. For example, in 2005, the Enschede Fraggles Jazz Orchestra visited Palo Alto and gave a number of concerts, including in San Juan Bautista. The Enschede Music School's high school chorus also has visited Palo Alto. 
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