Netherlands Trip - Dokkum      10th June:

Bridge Keeper Collecting the Dues by Clog

    I went off to the municipal shower block this morning. The shower was warm, hot even at times. But the show-stopper was the outlet in the floor. It was blocked. Soon my plimsolls were floating in water. As I left the block, a German lady, with a beautiful smile told me that I had been using the ladies part of the block. Now the block came as two identical units, one on top of the other. I asked the lady to show me the signs indicating male and female sections. She couldn't because there weren't any. She continued to smile, still insisting that I had been using the ladies section. Life is too short! I left her smiling sweetly.
    I concocted the most horrific breakfast this morning: fried tomatoes, cucumber, peach, semi-raw potatoes and eggs, a sort of omelette diablo. Rex and Meryl were terribly sweet and polite about it, the words "different" and "interesting" being mentioned. They both made trips to the toilets shortly after breakfast!

Restored Flour Mills, Zeldenrust in the Foreground, de Hoop Behind

    As 9am approached, the clocking on time for the bridge keepers, Rex decided we'd head off straight away instead of lingering around Leeuwarden, and soon we had passed by Prinsestuin and the first few bridges.
    On the outskirts of Leeuwarden the cycle path alongside the canal was streaming with hundreds of students on their way to university. Just by the university, a very large cycle park stood by the cycle path, with hundreds of cycles stacked away. The academic complex was enormous and very modern.
    We left the city behind us and passed through a very pastoral landscape, rich in the aroma of muck-spreading. Air force jets roared into the clouds above us from a nearby base, shattering the chorus from hundreds of song birds. This was a land of polder mills, old derelict structures and a few working mills liberally peppering the polders. Their functionality has largely been taken over by electrical pumps.

Boniface Statue

Boniface Chapel

    The houses we came across by the canal were stunning and imaginative in their design, and Rex was amazed at how well the gardens were kept. Many buildings had roof coverings which were a mixture of tiles and thatch. One possibility for this novel composition could be that the designs were based on Gulf houses. A Gulf house, also called a Gulf farmhouse or East Frisian house, is a type of farmhouse that emerged in the 16th and 17th centuries in North Germany. It is timber-framed and built using post-and-beam construction. Initially Gulf houses appeared in the marshes, but later spread to the Frisian geest. The Gulf house owes its emergence to economic circumstances. Before its invention the folk of the East Frisian North Sea marshes lived in Old Frisian farmhouses, a type of unit farmstead. These small buildings had enough space for the farmers because they did not have to store large harvests. Cereal farming was only possible on a few higher-lying areas, whilst the poorly drained marshes were only suitable as grassland and pastureland. As drainage technology improved with the use of polder mills, the fertile marshy areas could be dried out and used extensively for grain farming. In order to store the growing quantities of harvest, a house with greater capacity was needed, which is how the Gulf house came into being. The roof covering of the living area was traditionally made entirely of red clay tiles. By contrast, the lower one-third of the barn roof was covered with tiles, but the upper two-thirds were thatched.

Stadhuis

    We arrived on the outskirts of Dokkum just as the bridge keepers lunch hour started, so we tied up for a short while and enjoyed a quick lunch. With the bridge open, we made our way around the southern canal, the only place we could tie up was on a long pontoon by the bank.
    There was no obvious sign of facilities, so I ambled along the bank and got chatting to a Dutch chap who by chance owned the same class of boat as Rex. He hailed from Den Helder, and had owned his vessel for 12 years. Its previous owners were German, who had kept it in the Mediterranean. The chap was kind and took me along the pontoon to show me where some public toilets were, and he asked the bridge operator where the showers were. They were off the beaten track, so no shower tonight. The fellow and his wife were just heading out to Lauwersmeer, and then on to the islands. He made the interesting comment that it takes roughly a day of sailing between each island in the Waddenzee. He also made some interesting comments about the Dutch and their holding tanks (holding brown waste), but I couldn't possibly repeat them here.
    We set about exploring the city, one of the historical Eleven Cities, and like Leeuwarden, had a diamond shaped canal structure surrounding the town, keeping its shape as a fortified town. Oliver of Cologne preached the Fifth Crusade in Dokkum in 1214 and Dokkum sent a contingent; the crescent in the coat of arms of Dokkum refers to this event. Dokkum acquired city rights in 1298. In 1572 Dokkum was sacked by the Spaniards after it had joined the Dutch Revolt. In 1597, the Admiralty of Friesland was established in Dokkum. However, it was moved to Harlingen in 1645.

St Martinuskerk

    Our first port of call was Bonifatiuspark, just south of the town centre, in which Bonifatiuskapel was located. Dokkum, the most northerly town in the Netherlands, has long been a place of pilgrimage as the scene of the martyrdom in 754 of St Boniface, an English Benedictine monk and missionary.
    Boniface, or Winfrid, to give him his baptismal name, was born into a Christian family of noble rank, probably at Crediton in Devon, UK, about the year 680. Winfrid was a very small boy when he found himself listening to the conversation of some monks who were visiting his home. He resolved then to enter the Church, and this resolution never weakened. He became a teacher, and at the age of thirty he was ordained priest, and now added preaching to teaching and administrative work. His first attempt at being a missionary had shown him that to be effective as a missionary he must have a direct commission from the Pope, so in 718, with commendatory letters from the bishop of Winchester, he presented himself in Rome before Gregory II. The Pope welcomed him warmly, kept him in Rome until spring of the following year, when traveling conditions were favourable, and then sent him forth with a general commission to preach the word of God to the heathen. At this time Winfrid's name was changed to Boniface, from the Latin, bonifatus, fortunate). Pope Gregory III sent Boniface the pallium in 731, appointing him archbishop and metropolitan of all Germany beyond the Rhine, with authority to found new bishoprics.

Cheese Shop

    When he was past seventy, his missionary zeal burned ardently. He wished to spend his last years labouring among the first converts in Friesland. Leaving all things in order for Lullus, his successor, he embarked with some fifty companions and sailed down the Rhine. At Utrecht the party was joined by Eoban, bishop of that diocese. They set to work reclaiming the relapsed Christians, and during the following months made fruitful contact with the hitherto untouched tribes to the northeast. Boniface arranged to hold a great confirmation service on Whitsun Eve on the plain of Dokkum, near the banks of the little river Borne. While awaiting the arrival of the converts, Boniface was quietly reading in his tent. Suddenly a band of armed pagans appeared in the center of the encampment. His companions would have tried to defend their leader, but Boniface would not allow them to do so. As he was telling them to trust in God and welcome the prospect of dying for Him, the Germans attacked. Boniface was one of the first to fall; his companions shared his fate. The pagans, expecting to carry away rich booty, were disgusted when they found, besides provisions, only a box of holy relics and a few books. They did not bother to carry away these objects, which were later collected by the Christians who came to avenge the martyrs and rescue their remains. The body of Boniface was carried to Fulda for burial, and there it still rests. The book the bishop was reading and which he is said to have lifted above his head to save it when the blow fell is also one of Fulda's treasures.

Classic Dutch Scene on the Klein Diep

    Boniface has been called the pro-consul of the papacy. His administrative and organizing genius left its mark on the German Church throughout the Middle Ages. He is the patron saint of Germany.
    In the chapel, a kind lady put a film on for us, in English, that described the life of Boniface. The chapel contained a large auditorium, the meeting point for pilgrimages. It felt kind of strange to be in a place where a son of England, who became the patron saint of Germany, died here in Friesland.
    Collecting provisions on the way, we headed back into town, picking up some apple tarts on the way. Hmmm... perhaps we were getting addicted to these delicacies. The Stadhuis (1608) featured a handsome Rococo chamber. A chap was nestled up in the carillon, tuning the bells as we walked past.
    As we strolled further up into the town up a slight incline, it was easy to see why the town was built here, a natural mound or terp existed to stand it on. By an amazing cheese shop, we came across the 15th century Grote Kerk or St Martinuskerk, which contained a fine pulpit of 1751 and organ-case of 1688. The large cobbled square behind it was deserted, guess it wasn't market day, but there was a cafe open which we made full use of since there wasn't much else open. It was 5pm and the town was deserted.
    On the restored town walls stood two flour mills, De Hoop ("Hope") and Zeldenrust ("Seldom at Rest"), cap mills that are preserved and both are open to the public by appointment. We sauntered along the town wall to Zeldenrust, We hadn't made an appointment, so no chance to look around the interior, but the restoration work was very professional.
    We retired to Duonita where Meryl cooked a splendid chicken Provençale - delicious.