On the Road Again

We are on the train headed for Leeuwarden to begin the next phase of our Dutch adventure.  But before we get there, and while this free internet lasts on the train, I need to get caught up on what's happened up till now.  I won't get done, but will do as much as I can.

I last posted about our last night in Maastricht.  That was Sunday night, and it's already Thursday!  Let's see. Monday was a travel day with not a single photo taken!  We took the bus to the train station, the train to Rotterdam, and the tram to home.  "Home".  We remarked to each other how quickly a place begins to feel like home, and returning to John and Leonie's place in Rotterdam felt like coming home.  We got some food from the grocery store and went to bed.  Aad wanted to take us to the Oosterscheldekering and would come by bright and early in the morning.

Sure enough, at 9:00 a.m. there he was and Anja too.  Wonderful!  Off we went.  Aad went by the harbor, or a bit of it anyway.  Here's a seagoing pilot ship to take pilots out to the ships they will guide into port, but to intercept the ship at sea, rather than in the waterway. Tricky business, I think, transferring from the pilot ship to the tanker or freighter or whatever.

You can see cranes in the distance.  The harbor stretches for some 25 miles so this is nothing, really.  Just a small hint.

There are power generating windmills everywhere.

And now the Oosterscheldekering.  This was the last, most expensive and most difficult part of the Delta Project.  It was saved until last so that what was learned in accomplishing the earlier parts could be applied here.  This is in Zeeland, the southern delta region which suffered the most in the 1953 flood.  The original idea was to simply wall the whole area off, but over time environmental concerns became prominent.  It was ultimately decided to dam off part but leave the rest open to tidal flow.  This made the whole project far more complicated and expensive.  But, it was felt necessary.  Changing times, changing ideas.  I expect one might be hard pressed to find an example of so much money spent for environmental considerations.

There's a very nice visitor's center where we had some coffee before looking at the exhibits.

"Ramp" means flood.

I think perhaps the mastodon bones were unearthed somewhere close.  Nothing to do with the flood of '53 I'm pretty sure.  I mean, thousands of animals were lost, but no mastodons.

There was an excellent video.  The regularly scheduled one was not in English nor did it have English subtitles.  There was another theater next to it, they put us in there and showed us the film in English.  Just for us!  We thought that was pretty nice.

After we had finished in the visitor center we walked to the water barrier.

In the distance do you see the tall, very tall, concrete structure?  It's one of the structures of which the barrier is made.  They made one extra, just in case.

The ship was an exhibit, not a result of the flood.

And then the water barrier.

You can go inside.

You learn the story of the flood, the most recent of many,

and of what was done to try to make sure it never happens again.  These are two of the four ships built solely for the purpose of constructing this structure.  They also built an island and a factory.

This seemingly endless water isn't the sea.  That's on the other side.

Here you see one of the gates and the huge hydraulic ram that operates it.

The highest line is the level at the time of the flood.  The lower line is level above which the water is not allowed to rise.

The wind was blowing from the left.  The tide was running to the left.  It was very turbulent.

Lots of exhibits.

Before doing anything else they needed to compact the bottom sand which they did by driving vibrating spikes down 45 feet.  It took a long time.  Then they laid special mats built in a special factory and laid by a special ship etc. etc.  It was a massive effort.

The top photo shows how much land is normally dry.

This one shows the extent of the water in 1953.  I'm suddenly put in mind of the Jews after WW II.  "Nie wieder", "never again" they said.  And that's what the Dutch said as well.

This is one of those vibrating spikes.

We left the water barrier on our way to the flood museum.  We passed through the town of Zierikzee which was underwater for months in 1953

and on to a tiny road which ran past the seemingly unending polders on the left, with the dike and beyond it the relentless sea to the right.

Finally the Watersnotmuseum.  This museum is inside four enormous cassions.  They were brought from Britain and used to close the last breach in the dikes.  It was a way of doing things to which the Dutch were unaccustomed, but it was the only way.  And it worked.  Finally the gap was closed.

The names of the dead.  Lots of families.  Lots of children.

Here the names go past in an endless stream while, one by one, they are spoken.

Here you see the cassions being maneuvered into position.

Here you see them from the air as they are today.

When the queen visited Zierikzee she brought each child a rabbit because, you see, they had lost their pets and, I suppose, it gave them something to care for.  It gave them some hope.

The museum is divided into four sections, one per cassion, each with a theme.  The last one has to do with climate change and the inevitable rise in sea levels and storm severity.  The Dutch simply cannot afford to ignore these realities and are actively planning now for how things will be.

This is outside the Watersnotmuseum.  It's located in the inner dike.  There's also an outer dike.  The water you see is in deep depressions created by the flood.  It was easier to leave the water than to get rid of it and deal with the very deep depressions.

Aad was explaining to me how the stones in dikes are (or should) always be in a rosette pattern.  He seems to know everything.

We went back to Zerikzee for dinner.  It was very charming.

We went to, of all things, a Greek restaurant.  Aad and Anja had been here before.  The owner spoke only Greek and Dutch.  The food was wonderful and, true to form, we, or at least I, ate far too much.

After dinner we walked back to the car and thence home.  It had been a very long day.

The next day was our last full day in Rotterdam.  We went to the African market, just to see what was happening.  It was a market, sure enough.

They also have McDonalds, so the Dutch have one more Ronald than we.

Next we went to the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen.  First we went past the Architecture Institute because we were a bit screwed up.  Correction, I was a bit screwed up on directions and Nancy yielded to me, silly girl.

Ok, here we are.

First the obligatory cup of coffee (we're going native).

This is the coat check.  I don't know how it worked, but it sure was cool!

I don't actually have any photos from the museum.  You know how they are about that sort of thing.  We went back to our place for a bit.

And then back for one last time to Aad and Anja's.  Those amazing people thought perhaps we would like one last Dutch treat before we left, so Anja made pancakes, the Erik sort, some with bacon and some without.  They were delicious, and I finally got some good photos of our new friends.

We took the metro to what has come to be home.  The next day we would leave Rotterdam for the last time.  My goodness, where has the time gone?