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“Why do you cycle such distances, even through cold and rain, only to address people at schools where the name ‘Erasmus’ is on the door?” Well, the idea behind cycling was mainly to keep the body limber, but gradually it taught me to appreciate not only the destination, but also the journey itself. And the…

“Erasmus’ name will never be lost” said Erasmus’ English friend John Colet. Another Englishman, Alan Smith, has contributed a great deal to the prominence of the name Erasmus in our time, especially within European education. Alan Smith, British by birth and German by choice and marriage, is a former EU official; before that he was…

When I ring Hywel Williams’ doorbell on Friday afternoon, the terraces in the park near Victoria Embankment in London are already full for the Friday afternoon drinks. Hywel has also just arrived; he saw someone riding his bike and already suspected it was me. Over tea, we talk about Wales, where I regularly visited the…

“We are always happy to host guests when we can and encourage people who are interested in popping over to visit the college however in this instance, I’m not sure a visit to us will meet your hopes laid out below. Though we do have an administrative building named Erasmus, there is little other connection…

Erasmus lived in Cambridge from 1510 to 1515 in the so-called Queens college, in a room on the first floor to the left of the Hall. Today, this room is available as a meeting room under the name Erasmus Room, where I did not meet. As you can see on the map, there is also…

In 1973, Rotterdam got a university, which named itself after the city’s most famous child of all time, Desiderius Erasmus. To give substance to that naming, there has been an Erasmian values chair for several years, occupied by former SP MP Ronald van Raak. Van Raak himself studied philosophy at EUR and on 15 May…

In 1978/79 – when there was no ERASMUS program – I studied in Paris for a year. That year I lived in the Collège néerlandais of the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris. Formally this has nothing to do with Erasmus (but it does have to do with me), but this Cité Internationale was born out…

Every year, more than 60 people pursue doctoral degrees in the human and social sciences (SHS) at the Université de Paris Sorbonne Paris Nord in Villetaneuse, about 15 km north of Paris. Their research is coordinated by an École Doctorale, named after Erasmus since about 2010. A staff member at the school tells me that…

“Here stood the Collège de Montaigu, founded in 1314. Erasmus of Rotterdam lived there in 1495-1496” (Ici s’élevait le Collège de Montaigu, fondé en 1314. Erasme de Rotterdam y fut pensionnaire en 1495-1496) states the plaque opposite the Panthéon in Paris. It does not say that Erasmus and the other residents spoke of the vinegar…

Yesterday afternoon I cycled through old, medieval Leuven, where Erasmus once lived and where I visited the Erasmus Building last October. Those streets felt familiar, but I was on my way to the new Leuven, Louvain-la-Neuve, located 25 km south. When KU Leuven became Dutch-speaking after the war, the Walloons founded a new Leuven with…