Frisia Coast Trail.com

For many turbulent centuries, the town of Stavoren was a tightrope walker before it finally settled as a small harbour at the Lake...

Boxing Day 2022. The Frisian bastard  woke up in the small village of Aljezur in the southwest of Portugal. It was day ten of his hike along the Rota Vicentina, with three more days ahead. Like the Frisia Coast Trail, the Rota Vicentina follows the shoreline. A path shaped by wind, cliffs, and the constant murmur of the Atlantic. Today would be an easy stage: just fifteen kilometers to the coastal town of Arrifana. He had spent the night in Hotel Vicentina, named after the tr

lighthouse Kleine Preuße 'little Prussian' at the marsh near Wremem, Land Wursten Near a terp called Fallward, close to the village of Wremen in the region of Land Wursten, archaeologists uncovered a remarkable site that opens a rare window onto life during the Migration Period—the world of the so-called ‘Old Saxons’ who once inhabited the tidal marshes of the Wadden Sea at the mouth of the River Weser. Excavations at the Fallward terp revealed two burial grounds dating from

Despite the fact that some Frisian forenames still find their way into modern name-giving, like Bente, Dirk, Doutzen, Eske, Femke/Famke,...

Carving runes into combs and stones is basically the same as spraying tags on subway cars and bicycle tunnels. Those who create runes or...

Beauty is the best guarantee for quality and success. At least, this is how farmers in the province of Friesland thought of dairy cattle...

To understand the ‘greatness’ of Great Pier, we decided to look into his ‘achievements’. As a freedom fighter (or pirate, if you like) his core business was to ransack ships and towns. If you listen or read about the places Great Pier sacked the area and number are quite impressive. Considering Great Pier was only active for some four years, his ‘productivity’ is huge or deceiving. To name a few examples of anecdotal places Great Pier ‘paid a visit’. Recently, a friend inform

When you enter the province of Friesland from the west by car via the Afsluitdijk ('closure dam') and continues on the A7 Hwy, you will pass a viaduct carrying the name Okkehel. If your destination is the port of Harlingen, also in the area, you might spot in its harbour bright green sloops of the sloop-rowing club Okke Hel. In this blog post, we will explore the legend of the skipper named Ocke, later written as Okke, who lived about a thousand years ago in this watery corne

In our recent blog post Barbarians Riding to the Capital to Claim Rights on Farmland , we recounted the famous story of the two Frisian kings who travelled to Rome 2,000 years ago to seek an audience with Emperor Nero. In this blog post, the roles are reversed. Nearly two centuries ago, a delegate from Rome journeyed to the barbarians in the north to parley with their king in the city of The Hague. “ Je suis Frison, et je suis plus têtu que vous! ” (I am Frisian, and I am mor

This is not a blog post about the current agriculture and nitrogen debates between the government in Brussels and farmers in Flanders,...

Haubargs . Cathedral-like farmsteads with hipped roofs soaring up to twenty meters high, icons of the Eiderstedt peninsula in the region...

The Second World War. Despite a clear warning from the German Wehrmacht to buzz off, the nosy and inquisitive Hanso Idzerda returned to the crash site of a V2 rocket on Parkweg Road in Scheveningen—not far from his own home. Ignoring the warning, he was caught a second time by a Wehrmacht patrol. This time, there would be no friendly asking anymore. On November 3, 1944, Idzerda was executed on charges of espionage at the estate of Oosterbeek. He had been investigating the cra

Breaking! Great Pier measured around 2.30 meters in height! This question has been bugging the Frisians for centuries. Now we know. How? Keep reading… Granted. We asked ourselves this very same question in a previous blog post . We explored how great Pier was… as a leader. This time we are asking the same question, but taking it quite literally: how tall was Great Pier? No, we did not find and measure Great Piers remainings. We know where he is buried, but we don’t know exact

Most Frisians know the name of Great Pier, or ‘ Grutte Pier ’ in Frisian. But what do we really know about him? Well, all we know for sure is that he was tall. Very tall (read how tall exactly ). Spoiler alert: his name gave away that he was tall, right? If you would ask your friends and family what they know about Grutte Pier, then most of them would be able to tell you a handful of characteristics. Some might be even able to add a small story to that name. What most of them

May 8, 2021. Visual artist, photographer Arie Bruinsma approached one of the Frisian bastards . Arie explained to him that his wife...