Guidebook research VII: the hunebedden

Hunebed D17 at Rolde

Today it's all about hunebedden, 52 of which stand in Drenthe (two more in Groningen). They are the remains of 5000-year-old dolmens, or burial tombs. At the Hunebed Center, a museum dedicated to the ancient monuments, I learned that they were built at the dawn of the Neolithic era and first excavated in the 19th century. It is believed that the granite boulders used for these dolmens arrived with the glaciers from Scandinavia during the Ice Age.

Guidebook research VI: Into Drenthe

Southeast Groningen

Bourtange was a tour-bus attraction, so a different experience. It's a reconstructed fort dating from the 1500s in the extreme southeast of Groningen province, with a handful of little museums. Nothing earthshattering but the film in the museum called Terra Mora is pretty good, plus photos of local wildlife and the chance to shoot cannonballs at your friends. There is also a reconstructed synagogue (dating from 1842) and the docent Gerrie is endlessly effusive, telling me all about how the rabbi comes over from Amersfoort to conduct services on Hanukah and Passover, and about how someone came and blew the shofar on Rosh Hashana. But clearly what most people enjoy is sitting on the plein in the sunshine. I had a dull salad at the cafe. It was nice to walk on the ramparts under the trees while the mostly elderly tourists took the cobblestone road below. After lunch I rode toward Vlagtwedde. The knooppunten direct you off the road along a nice country lane and I came across a tiny Jewish cemetery.

Guidebook research IV: Friesland & Ameland Island

Harlingen, Friesland. At the home of Elizabeth & Jan Minemma, breakfast is an exercise in minimalism, almost as it would be served on a ship —well, they do live in a shipyard, the one house amid warehouses, and their neighbors live on boats moored in the adjacent canal.