Netherlands/Berlin Trip - Hindeloopen      21st July:

Grote Kerk with the Leaning Tower

    It was almost 8am when I came to. A howling gale was blowing outside. Rex had been up since 6am, when the sky had been almost black with scudding clouds. The weather front had moved through by now, and fluffy white clouds were flying by under an azure sky. The wind hummed and whistled a thousand tunes as it blasted through the rigging of a forest of masts.
    After a refreshing shower we sat outside in the cockpit eating croissants and sipping steaming coffee. Fortunately Duonita was berthed facing the wind, so the cockpit was in the lee, and the sun poured into our little sheltered haven.
    Only one vessel moved out of the marina, a large motor boat. On the aft deck stood a couple, the mother holding her baby. Were they mad? It must have been a Force 5 out there on the Ijsselmeer.
    It would take us about six hours to get down the Ijsselmeer to our next destination, and the forecast was for the wind to stay like this to 6pm. Having recently undertaken a 6.5 hour trip, six hours of purgatory in this wind lost its appeal, so we opted for a rest day and a proper look around Hindeloopen.

Inside the Grote Kerk with the Copper Chandeliers

    Hindeloopen received city rights in 1225, and in 1368 it became a member of the Hanseatic League. Since the 12th and 13th centuries, Hindeloopen trading vessels undertook journeys to the North and Baltic Sea Coasts. The strong overseas connections with foreign countries and infrequent contact with the hinterland were probably the reasons for the development of the Hindeloopen language; a mixture of West Frisian, English, Danish, and Norwegian.

Fletcher at Work

    The shipping trade with Scandinavia, the Baltic states and Russia, together with good relations with the metropolis Amsterdam, brought the population of Hindeloopen a great prosperity. The 17th and 18th centuries were especially golden times. At that time, the people of Hindeloopen spent a lot of money in Amsterdam on precious fabrics and objects, which were supplied through the Dutch East India Company (VOC). The rich town developed in those days her own traditional costumes and a completely individual style with colourful painted walls and furniture. The flourishing trade came to an end in the 19th century when the merchants moved to Amsterdam. Hindeloopen became somewhat impoverished and people were forced to make a living from fishing. Nowadays, tourism features heavily in the town's economy.

Museum

    With the sun on our backs and the wind in our face, we headed off to have our explore of the small town, one of the Elfstedentocht (200km long skating tour of the eleven historical cities of the province). Leaving the Hylper Haven, we passed by the Sylhuis, the lockkeeper's house, together with the leaf bridge in front of it, and the Liars' Bench, where male inhabitants of Hindeloopen still meet and tell big stories.
    The museum did not open until 11am, so our first port of call was the Grote Kerk with its tall tower, visible from miles out over the Ijsselmeer. In the Middle Ages a parish church existed in Hindeloopen, but was destroyed in 1570. It was rebuilt in 1593. During the 17th century the population of Hindeloopen grew significantly, and there was a need for a larger building. The old church was demolished and the foundation was laid for a new church building in 1632. More than 25 years later, the church was extended with a south aisle. It was only in 1683 when the tower was equipped with bells. During the years 1970-1975 both the interior and exterior restorations were carried out, and the tower, hanging well off balance, was somewhat "rectified".
    The interior of the church was exceedingly neat and tidy. Copper chandeliers hung from the ceiling, one of which was inscribed with the names of the church leaders. I found it hard to imagine that these had once been dumped in the rubbish tip. Outside a couple of rows of white gravestones saluted the heavens, marking the graves of British and Canadian airmen killed during World War II. As we left the peaceful building, a gaggle of noisy cyclists were about to enter; we caught the tranquil setting at the right moment.

Skating Museum Shop - Painted Skates, Trays and Clogs

    We took a few random turnoffs along the tidy jigsaw of old streets, canals and wooden bridges that are almost too twee to be true, and came across a workshop in which a fletcher in his 30s was carving a bow. His workshop was crammed full of bows and arrows. I am always fascinated when watching a skilled craftsman at work, and I was not disappointed here. The fellow deftly scraped a bladed instrument over an emerging bow held in a vice, then he sanded it, repeated the process, beat the bow, and carried on. "I once made a bow that required 165lbs force to use it," he told me with a proud grin on his face. Wow, it would require some brute force to use that bow I thought.

Skūtsjes by the Brabander

Likhus

    By now the museum was open, so we retraced our steps a little, shared a joke or two with the lady on the till, and entered. A series of prints and paintings told us about the origin and development of the town. A short film in a "pretend" ship's cabin recounted a business trip to the Baltic Sea, allowing us to share the experience of a ship that is ready to leave for St. Petersburg. We were also introduced to Hindelooper painting through a fully furnished house, which included beautiful painted furniture, colourful costumes, jewellery, paintings and other treasures from the 18th century.
    Walking down a small alley we stumbled across a delightful, little, canal-side cafe with a handsome boat moored in front of it; a lovely place to rest and sip coffee. No sooner had we sat down than a quorum of local council men started to attack foliage with noisy chain saws just opposite us. Rex went into Victor Meldrew mode with gusto, and cursed fluently in several languages including blue. Hey ho, such is life, we outlasted them and eventually enjoyed some peace and quiet.
    I checked out a small canal-side gallery nearby, full of abstract geometric 3D works of art. I pondered on the content for a while, the geometric aspects intriguing me, and asked the artist if he had been an engineer. "No," he replied, "but I was a graphic designer. Now I am retired and just create when I feel like it." I stared at one picture, and thought I could make out a group of skaters. "No, they are footballers," he told me. "My son used to play football when he was eight years old. One of the boys used to just stand and look down at the grass all the time, and he is that one there," he added, pointing out one of the abstract figure representations on his art piece. I took his word for it, but I would never have worked out that little gem in a million years. I thanked the man for allowing me to look around his gallery, and left more confused than when I went in.

Sea Captain's House

    Moving on we came across the Frisian Skating Museum. I understood the museum itself contained a large collection of skates, slides, old prints and an Elfsteden history with many photos. We decided not to enter, but the shop that fronted it was a treasure house full of painted clogs (Klompen), trays and bric-a-brac; spell-binding.
    Crossing a canal via a small bridge, we found ourselves adjacent to the town football field, and started walking alongside the canal. Opposite, on the other side of the canal, a few wonderful, small, old brick buildings stood on the water's edge, accompanied by stunning gardens and hideaways, where the owners could sit in comfort around a table overlooking the canal. Now in bygone times of glory, the small streets contained sea captains' houses, and it is still possible to see an anchor hanging on the faēades of these houses, in those years a sign that the captain could still accept freight. In summertime when the captain was at sea, the captain's wife lived with the children in the so-called "Likhus", a little house behind the captain's house at the waterline. It was a group of such Likhus that we were admiring.
    The canal abruptly turned left and widened out. It was here that Rex did his good deed of the day by helping out a boat tie up to the bank; he was really taking yet another opportunity to polish up his linguistic skills. We followed the wide canal down, it seemed to mark the town boundary. On the opposite bank large expensive looking properties stood with their attendant manicured gardens. To our left, fields stretched away, some containing cattle, others horses. A road bridge allowed us to cross the canal. From the bridge we could see the canal disappearing off into the countryside, and a train winding its way across the fields to Hindeloopen station and Workum.
    We carried down along the road to the dyke overlooking the Ijsselmeer. Climbing the dyke, we were presented with a magnificent panorama of kite surfers and wind surfers, all skimming across the shallow waters near the shore. How they avoided tangling each other's lines I'll never know. We took the scene in for a while before we walked along the dyke and returned to the town, only to discover another little treasure.

Pancake Cafe

    This was at one time a 17th century sea captain's house. We entered the house and a charming lady showed us around, pointing out the tiles on the wall, the top half being shades of white, the bottom half containing tiles of jumping creatures such as dogs, cats and rabbits. "The higher the picture tiles reached, the greater the prosperity of the owner," she explained. Above a couple of wall cabinets was a frieze of hand painted floral designs, which had been imported from Italy in the 17th century.
    On one side of the cabinets she opened a door, and took us down to a room which was a kitchen and larder area. Again tiles decorated the walls, and a tiled projection from a corner in the ceiling indicated where an oven had once stood below. The kitchen also contained pristine white melamine fittings, it was obviously being utilised. "I live here," she told me. The larder had a small vertical opening to the outside through which a cool draft wafted. The walls of the building were very thick, and she explained that unless there was good ventilation, its interior would become unbearably hot.
    The other door next to the cabinets lead us up to another room, almost like a studio. It was here that we learned the woman was an artist, and several of her works hung on the walls or lay on the table. She also talked us through some photographs, and one photo displayed a Likhus we had seen earlier. She informed us what the Likhus was, and that the family would move to this smaller dwelling while the captain was away. "But why?" was the obvious question. "Because there is less to keep clean in a smaller house," she explained. My mind momentarily flipped to images we had encountered of the Dutch obsessively cleaning anything made of atoms.

Roof Top

    We thanked the lady and made our way back to the boat. As we arrived at the marina we noticed a large yacht being towed out by a small motorboat, the marina work boat as it turned out. Rex commented, "That's the large yacht we saw this morning slung underneath the crane, the one with the retractable bow thruster." The large yacht suddenly juddered to a halt as its keel hit a patch of sand, but the small tow craft managed to free it, and off it slid out into the narrow channel leading to the Ijsselmeer. Did the yacht's engines no longer work, we'll never know. A short distance down the channel the motorboat and yacht ran into more difficulties, effectively blocking the channel. Other boats entering or leaving the marina had to weave their way around the floundering yacht. We couldn't make out what the problem was, but the stricken craft was a definite hazard. By now a small crowd had gathered to observe the proceedings. Then we spotted activity around a rescue boat. Its engines started up, but the crew were not frantic. They dawdled up to a hut and eventually dawdled out in their wet weather gear. After an age they were all on their rescue boat, but nothing much was happening. Were they all muttering, "We cannot leave until we have cleaned our boat."? It was just as well the occasion was non-life threatening. Eventually the vessel reversed out of its pen and slowly edged out into the channel. It seemed to circle the wallowing yacht for ages before a tow rope was attached. Meanwhile another rescue boat was launched. The last we saw of the incident, the stricken yacht was being towed down the channel at almost snail pace. Perhaps the vessel was going to journey on under sail, and it required much deeper water before the sails could be raised.

Looking Towards the Sylhuis Lock

    Whilst on Duonita, a Dutch boat entered the box beside us. It was a chartered yacht, crewed by the Dutch couple Ronald and Minki, and their two young sons. The couple didn't own a boat, and Ronald often crewed for family members and friends, and this was the first time they had chartered. They had just sailed over from Medemblik (the winds had abated sufficiently by now). The boys immediately popped off to swim in the complex's swimming pool. As soon as they had gone, out popped a cage containing a canary, which the couple hung on the end of the boom. We had a long and pleasant chat with the couple. Minki grew up in Hindeloopen, and when she met her husband at university, she had taught him to sail. Stories of sailing trips were exchanged, and our knowledge of Friesland and the Netherlands was extended.
    We were also told the name of what they regarded to be the best pub in the town, the Brabander. By pure chance this was the same place where Rex and I had coffee earlier by the canal, with the beautiful boat in front of it. Minki explained that the boat was a skūtsje, a flat bottomed Frisian sailing boat of the type tjalk, originally an ordinary cargo boat, but today a prized ship and one of the icons of Frisia. Skūtsjes were built from the 18th century until about 1930 and are 12 to 20 m long and on average 3.5 m wide. In the 1920s and 1930s many skūtsjes were fitted with engines and after World War II the sails were even often removed. Nevertheless other, much larger, powered boats took over water transportation in the area and many skūtsjes were rebuilt into houseboats or luxurious sailing yachts. Over time, more and more were restored to their original state. There is a yearly racing event in Friesland called Skūtsjesilen. Such races were already held in the early 19th century, but since 1945 they have been regulated through a committee, SKS. In these races, each skūtsje represents a city or village. This racing started early in the 20th century where villages in Friesland, or more precisely often the bar and hotel owners, made prizes available for the winner. At that time the skipper and his family lived on board in a narrow cabin, and before the race, the family and the interior of the cabin was placed ashore to make the boat as light as possible at the start of the race. "This Saturday they will all be racing down at Stavoren," Ronald told us. All the time the small canary chirped away, no doubt pleased to be out in the fresh air.

    We returned to the Brabander later, and spent some time playing a weird form of billiards. The young man behind the bar told us it was a hugely popular game in Holland and there were leagues.
    One of Rex's passions is looking for boats for sale; better than train spotting I suppose. So, naturally when we returned to the marina, he went into ecstasies over the craft for sale moored up at one end of the marina. These ranged in price from 89k euros to 580k euros, with one marked as "price upon request". Rex was admiring the latter boat when a Dutch fellow ambled up. "It has a retractable keel, and it says it has never been used," he laughed. The middle-aged chap was an experienced sailor who knew about boats and what he wanted out of them. We soon learned that he had sailed in many places across the globe. His knowledge and experience was probably partly due to his career; he was a hydrographic surveyor.