Visiting tourist sites that have high historical value can always provide different sensations and also new things that can be learned from the past.
Interestingly, in Indonesia, there are a lot of historical places that are not less interesting than modern tourist destinations as today, which are now increasing in number.
History, of course, has its own charm that can also amaze visitors.
Lawang Sewu is a building located in Semarang City, Central Java Province – Indonesia.
It is also being one of the icons of this city. The building is more than one hundred years old because it was built in 1904 and completed in 1907.
The precise location of the building is on Pemuda Street, Semarang, right facing the Tugu Muda monument. Now, Lawang Sewu is a fairly crowded tourist attraction in the city of Semarang.
Lawang Sewu was built on February 27, 1904, as the head office of NIS, one of the train’s companies in the Dutch East Indies. The building has high and wide windows, like a door so that local people call it “Lawang Sewu” meaning “a thousand of doors”.
Although the building is named Lawang Sewu, in fact, the building has only 429 doors. For a long time, the building was not managed. But finally, Lawang Sewu in late June 2011 was renovated and re-opened for the public on July 5, 2011.
Because the building was built as the head office of NIS, the history of Lawang Sewu cannot be separated from the railway in Indonesia.
After the independence of Indonesia, the building is used as a railway office of Indonesia or now PT Kereta Api Indonesia. Besides, it was used as Office of Infrastructure of Regional Military Command and Regional Office of Ministry of Transportation in Central Java.
Meanwhile, during the struggling period, the building became a silent witness of a 5-day battle in Semarang.
Thus, the city’s government of Semarang in 1992 entered Lawang Sewu as one of 102 historical buildings in Semarang which should be protected.
Lawang Sewu is located at Tugu Muda complex, Jalan Pemuda, Central Semarang, Semarang, Central Java, precisely at the center of Semarang city. So, access to this tourism object is easy. Lawang Sewu is open every day, starting from 6.00 am until 09.00 pm.
The entrance ticket is IDR 10,000 for adults, IDR 5,000 for students and kids.
If you want to enter into the basement, you will be charged IDR 30,000/person and for the tourist guide is IDR 30,000.
