We left Ghent during the night and arrived in Middelburg
early in the morning on Friday, April 14. Overnight we had left Belgium and we
were now in The Netherlands. We sailed down the Ghent Canal into the
Westerschelde (estuary of the Schelde River) and up another canal to
Middelburg. Middelburg is the capital of Zeeland (the settlers of New Zealand
came from here), and is one of the oldest cities in The Netherlands. It was an
important trading city for the VOC (Dutch East India Company) and very wealthy
during the Middle Ages and into the 1500’s. It is located in the middle of the
island of Walcheren (since drained and diked to become a peninsula) and was the
middle of three cities built to fortify the island. After the island was
flooded in the 1950’s they began the Delta Project to build watergates, dikes,
locks, and other special formations to close off the rivers and inlets from the
sea and to control the water flow over the land.
We walked with our guide into the city through the east
gate. Everything in the city is circular – it is surrounded by a canal and
dikes and the streets circle around the main square which is basically the site
of a tenth century abbey. The church has a tall spire which has been nicknamed
Long John and is a landmark. We walked by row houses which were clean and
beautifully kept. Most of them have been designated historical landmarks and
the owners are subsidized for taking care of them. They have a special plaque
indicating this and the name of the original owner is often attached to the
house. The current owners may have their
name over the doorbell, but not on the house! Another fun thing is that they
have a sign for their mail box which says what kind of mail they want and do
not want i.e. No junk mail, please! Wouldn’t we love to have that privilege?
The
town square was dominated by an extremely ornate, 15th century Gothic town hall.
It was covered with statues of counts and countesses of
Zeeland. The building was completely destroyed in WWII and rebuilt using the
existing brick and stone. What a marvel!
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