Wanting to see the countryside on this Father's Day, we headed south to Zeeland in southern Holland. We traveled via back roads to get to our first water crossing. The countryside is lovely with lots of molen (windmills), pleasure boats on canals, homesteads and farms with lovely gardens. Our photographer was too busy navigating to take any photos. We saw an interesting town that we can bike to and rent paddle boats on a canal. We discovered that we had (got from Eliot's perspective) to take a ferry to cross a road that was on the map (obviously, our navigator did not pass Map Reading 101). So we drove the Volvo on board with the other cars and lots of bicycles to make our short ferry trip across the Nieuwe Waterweg from Maasluis to Vlaardingen. We all got out of the car to see the water and a few ships too.
Zeeland's three fingers of land are really just islands set in the middle of a vast delta through which many of Europe's rivers drain, including the Rijn, Schelde, and Maas. The name, which means Sea Land, could not be more appropriate as the boundary between the two is thin indeed.
For centuries the plucky Zeelanders have been battling the North Sea waters, and not always with success. The St Elizabeth's Day flood of 1421 killed over 100,000 and forever altered the landscape - and some would argue the disposition - of the Netherlands and its people. More recently, the huge flood of 31 January 1953 killed almost 2000, left 500,000 homeless and destroyed 800 km of dykes.
The result of this last calamity is the Delta Project, an enormous multidecade construction programme that aims to finally ensure the security of these lands. It's easily the largest construction project in modern history and has greatly altered the entire region. [Lonely Planet guide]
This description is what piqued our interest and set our itinerary in Zeeland. We wanted to see the Delta Expo - the museum on the Delta Project. It ended up being a disappointing adventure with lots of twists and turns. The first order of business was lunch. Here was our first mishap. A fellow passenger on the ferry suggested an area that was touristy and had nice beaches. We thought that would be a great place to get lunch, so off we went. Did I mention that it was Sunday? More to come on that. We drove to the beach figuring there would be food. Miles was asleep, so Jim and Eliot went to check it out. Everyone was arriving to the parking area with their bathing suits and beach gear. We hadn't brought anything for the beach. Jim and Eliot followed the people over the dunes; we had seen a sign for food, so that was good. Jim returned and said it was a 1/2 mile hike to get to the beach and the people and the food. Since we weren't prepared for the beach, we thought we'd head into the nearby beach town Ouddorp for lunch at a cafe. The town was dead - nothing was open. Bad decision #2 - we decided to head down the road to see what we could find for food. We munched on snacks.
Driving the N57 highway was different than we expected. It was along the north sea coast, so I think we were expecting a Highway 1 experience. Well, in Holland, between you and the coast is a tall dyke. You can't see the water except on bridges and dams. It's pretty much towns off to the side, windmills, crop fields, and every once in a while a beach with lots of boats, campers and/or people that you don't see until you pass it. Clearly, there are tricks that the Dutch people know. One is that nothing is open in towns on a Sunday and don't leave your house without food. We stopped at a gas station and got sandwiches and snacks. I am sure I over bought worrying about starving to death out in the middle of nowhere. We were back on track to get to our desitination - the Delta Expo.
We exited where the guidebook says. We drove around and found the building but it appears to have been turned into a hospital (in the middle of a causeway). We found the parking lot for all the beachgoers. We went to the other side of the highway and looked at the water play park. No expo. Maybe it closed becasuse the Dutch weren't intersted in going to a museum on the project. We went down teh highway to realize that it had to be here. We decided to go back to the building and get out. Aha - I found a sign. They've moved it to the water park (think wave machine and slides). So back across the highway we go to go to the expo. 5 euro to park. OK, this is what we came for. We check with the ticket office. 16 euro (x 1.3 for USD) per person including Eliot. They don't sell separate tickets for the expo; it's a combined ticket. We decide the parking is sunk cost; we'll just go back to the beach and enjoy it - darn it! The ticket office gives (yeah!) us a parking token to get out of the lot. When leave, we notice at least 2 other parties trying to locate the expo. We don't feel so dumb. It seems so strange to combine the two with completely different audiences.
Having not seen the museum, it still seems cool and a huge undertaking. The Delta project started in 1958 and was completed in 1996. Over time, the Dutch became more environmentally aware and blocking up the estuaries was no longer acceptable. So the Oosterdschelde was left open to the sea tides and 3 km of movable barriers were constructed that could be lowered ahead of a possible storm surge. This picture shows the movable (like gates) barriers on the right. There's also a wind park filled with wind turbines.
posted by Whitney @ 7:54 AM
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