Posts In The “Destinations” Category
Cheese has been a major economy in Edam since the town’s cheese market began in the 16th century—at peak times 250,000 rounds of cheese were sold annually. An enjoyable one-hour bicycle ride brought us from Hoorn to Edam, where we toured the scenic town and sampled the product it’s famous for. Below are trip highlights…
Hoorn was the birthplace of Dutch explorer Willem Schoutens, who in 1616 named South America’s Cape Horn after his home town. Also born in Hoorn was Jan Pieterszoon Coen, an officer of the Dutch East India Company and a two-time Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. Not surprisingly, Hoorn was a major Dutch East India…
We’d passed over vehicle roads in Dirona several times, for example in Boston Harbor and Norfolk, Virginia, where a vehicle tunnel runs under the waterway. But until we transited the Krabbersgat naviduct, near Enkhuizen, we’d never passed through an aqueduct over an open road. A naviduct is a special type of navigable aqueduct that also…
Enkhuizen, Netherlands received city rights in 1355 and, as a Dutch East India Company harbour, was among the most important cities in the country. The city once bordered the saltwater bay Zuiderzee, with sea locks to protect the harbour and adjoining canals from flooding. The completion of the Afsluitdijk dam in 1932 transformed the Zuiderzee…
Even in the Netherlands, a country of cyclists, the island of Terschelling is known for its extensive and diverse bicycle paths. It was a great landfall for us after the 160-mile run across the German Bight from Cuxhaven, Germany. After a fresh seafood lunch in town, we set of on an afternoon bicycle trip that…
On our run from Germany to the Netherlands, we’d hoped to exit the German Bight on the border at Delfzjil and take the sheltered Netherlands canals through Leeuwarden to Harlingen. But the least depth through some of the waterways is an optimistic 1.9m, too shallow for our 2.1m draft. So we instead returned to the…
Cuxhaven, Germany sits at the mouth of Elbe River and the North Sea. For centuries the location was a stronghold to control sea access from the river and continues that tradition as an Elbe River pilot station. While the river provides much positive value to the city, it also has negatives. Dangerous seas form when…
After three exceptional days on the Kiel Canal, we followed five large commercial ships into the Brunsbuttel lock and out into the busy Elbe River. We made a short run downriver to our final stop in Germany at Cuxhaven, where we had a berth waiting for us at the YC marina. Below are trip highlights…
Our third day on the Kiel Canal was the longest and the most exciting. After an aborted first attempt due to fog and traffic movement restrictions in the canal, we made a 36-mile run from Rendsburg to Brunsbuttel at the western canal entrance. During the transit, we ran at wide-open-throttle for a time in order…
On our second day in the Kiel Canal, we stopped for the night in Rendsburg after an 11-mile run from Lake Flemhude. As part of our “full Kiel Canal experience” we had lunch canal-side at the Bruckenterrassen Cafe with a view to the passing ships. We also walked under the canal through a pedestrian tunnel…
The Kiel Canal was completed in 1895, connecting the Baltic and North seas through northern Germany. It is the busiest artifical waterway in the world and annually carries nearly as many ships as the Suez and the Panama canals combined. In contrast to Scotland’s Crinan Canal that we passed through last year, Dirona wasn’t even…
We turned south towards Germany after departing Aalborg and exiting the Limfjord, travelling 165 miles and making two stops before our final Danish anchorage at Thuro Bund. We were scheduled to arrive into Amsterdam by November 1st, so didn’t spend as much time exploring Denmark as we would have liked. But the town of Svendborg,…
With a strategic position at the mouth of the Limfjord, Aalborg has long been an important Danish city. Settlement dates back to 700AD and it currently is Denmark’s fourth-largest city. A major industrial 20th-century industrial center, the city has done a wonderful job of revitalizing it’s waterfront and has a number of beautiful heritage buildings….
The Limfjord is a peaceful cruising ground that provides a sheltered passage across Denmark’s Jutland Peninsula between Thyboron and Aalborg. With a maximum depth of 4m in the main channel, the waterway is too shallow for large ships and sees only light commercial traffic. Although not a fjord in the geololigical sense, the Limfjord once…
The largest naval battle in history took place 55nm west of Thyboron, Denmark. In 1916, 99 ships German High Seas fleet faced 151 ships of the British Grand Fleet in the World War I Battle of Jutland. One of the reasons we’d stopped at Thyboron was to visit the Sea War Museum there, with its…
In early October, we made a 180-mile overnight crossing of the North Sea from Stavanger, Norway to Thyboron, Denmark. We’d had an incredible five months in Norway and wish we could have stayed for a year or more. The North Sea has a fearsome reputation, but we had a blissfully easy run with winds less…
We spent most of our final day in Stavanger at the exceptional Norwegian Oil Museum in Stavanger. The museum details the history and technology behind Norway’s growth as an oil nation through models, interactive displays and actual industry equipment. Below are trip highlights from October 4th and 5th in Stavanger, Norway. Click any image for…
We didn’t require much preparation for our run across the North Sea from Stavanager, Norway to Denmark. All we really wanted was fuel and some good weather. We got the fuel soon after arriving, but not the weather. A major storm system passed through, bringing strong northerly winds and generating large waves in the north-exposed…