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Published: September 20th 2013
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Campgrounds on the Waterway
as we moved from Middelburg toward Willemstad. On our way from Middelburg to Willemstad, we found that this was a busy waterway with boats of all sizes and types. When going through the lock you never know how crowded it will be – sometimes you are in the lock with only a couple of other pleasure boats and others you are sharing the lock with a barge. Here barges are not pushed by separate tug boats – the “tug” part is actually part of the barge itself. Families live on these barges and you can see that the living area is usually fixed up with curtains, plants at the windows and the family car on the “roof”. Fortunately many of these types can fit through the locks with us. In other areas they have 2 or more locks next to each other – one for what they call “sport” vessels more commonly known as pleasure boats like us and the others for the much larger commercial barges
The only wildlife we saw in this area were swans, hundreds of them. There were large areas that were covered with white dots and when you looked through the binoculars you could see they were swans. Of course there are
other water birds as well such as ducks and coots, but the white swan was in the majority, also due to their size they were the easiest to see.
Normally we keep the bicycles folded up and stored in the shower in the forward head. During crossings this is an excellent location for them because it keeps them out of the saltwater and secure. The downside is that they are difficult to get in and out. Fortunately now that we are in the canals, which are freshwater by the way, we can leave them up on the deck. This makes them very accessible and with living in a bike friendly culture we feel right at home. The best part is we can go farther distances in shorter time and thus visit sites that would have been out of our reach before.
Prince William of Orange decided in 1581 to build Willemstad as a fortified city due to its strategic location on the border of three of the seven provinces. It followed the traditional Old Dutch fortress star shape – a defensive wall around the town into which projections or what is called ramparts were built. Willemstad had 7
of these ramparts (points of the star), each one named after the seven provinces in existence at the time. It was not completed before William of Orange was assassinated, but his son made sure it was completed. The city gates and the barracks are gone, but many of the buildings remain. In 1970 Willemstad became a cultural-historical monument and we were told it would be worth a stop.
One that surprised us was the former Town Hall. When you look at it you would think it was a church and if we hadn’t read the booklet that is what we thought. In fact it was built in 1587 as a town hall but it was to be simultaneously used to “spread the word of God” as the domed church in town was not built until 1607. The Prince at the time gave funds for the building of it with the condition that the Judiciary could use the prison situated under the tower and that he could keep his important papers in a room in the tower. He also made a provision that the rooms at the top of the building must be used for the storage of munitions and
Coming Up to One of the Locks
Waiting for the traffic lights to turn green grain during times of war. There are 3 cellars, one was used as a meat market, another as a weigh-house and the other for any important duties needed by the citizens of the town.
The Dutch Reformed Church is octagonal with a dome roof, similar to the one in Middelburg. The pulpit was the central point and not the altar. The reason for this was that it was said that the ears needed focusing, not the eyes. Unfortunately we were not able to see the interior for ourselves as it was closed, it seems to be a very common occurrence in the Netherlands. This is the first country we have visited where churches are regularly closed and not accessible to tourists. It is also the first country where the Protestant church is dominant, not certain if there is a relationship there but an interesting coincidence.
The windmill was one of the last buildings to be erected inside the city wall which occurred in 1734. It was built of brick, the first we have seen like this. It was ravaged during WWII, but restored in 1951 when it returned to being used as a mill. It now has been
In the Lock
Janice handles the mid-section while Bob stays at the helm and handles the stern line. turned into a private home, but the exterior was kept intact without modifications. We were amazed at how large these old windmills are. The other thing that is interesting is the fact that the only part of the windmill that rotates is the very top where the blades of the windmill are connected.
The current town hall had over its lifetime served many different purposes. It was built in 1623 for Prince Maurits, but after he died it became the residence for the Governor of the town. Since 1795 it was used for residential accommodation for the military and civilian officials, then as a storage depot. In 1830 it was used as a military hospital and even was used as a Pigeon Post station for the army. The police used it as their barracks from 1906 – 1952. In 1973 it became the Town Hall which it continued to be used for until 1997. It currently serves as a civil wedding hall and community meeting location. No matter what use was made of it, the building itself is an outstanding example of Dutch Renaissance architecture and is quite impressive.
There are two marinas in this town, one is
Sharing the Lock
with all sizes of boats - even a barge. new and built behind a break-wall on the edge of town, the other is built right up against the old defensive wall and part of this marina is connected to the old gate which leads to the inner harbor inside the defensive wall. We were lucky in finding an open box (a slip without a finger pier) in the old marina a very short walk from the center of town. Our friends had warned us that this was a very popular tourist spot and they did not exaggerate. The inner harbor was full the night we arrived and boats were rafted up four and five deep. There are a few very good restaurants in this inner Harbor area and they were very busy.
We took a very pleasant bike ride around the defensive wall outside the moat. Everywhere you look in the Netherlands there are canals as you would expect. However they vary in size from the extremely large that we have been traveling on to the ones that are may be 6 foot wide and 4 foot deep. These are obviously drainage ditches that are essential to keeping the low lands dry. The water in these canals is
As We Poured Out of the Lock
boats ahead of us coming in the lock & those that were with us moving forward then pumped over the dyke into the major waterways. Historically this is why there used to be so many windmills in the Netherlands, they were the pumps that kept the lowlands dry.
Willemstad was a pleasant stop, but a short one. We need to have some repair work done to Tsamaya and our friends recommended a marina farther north. We decided to leave the Stande Maste (standing mast) canal route and head out to the North Sea so we could move more quickly to have the repair work done. If we stayed inside the canal system we would need to have more time to negotiate the numerous bridges and locks. Fortunately there is an easy route from Willemstad to the sea, so that is the plan now with hopes that we can come back through the canals on our return after the repairs are done.
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