We stayed in Fletcher Het Veerse Meer, a relatively small and a very nice 4-star hotel, located by the Veerse Meer lagoon just 1.5 km from the Midden-Zeeland airfield. After a quick check-in, we dropped our bags, and got on the road.
Our ambition was to go on a sightseeing tour around the western part of the peninsula. The red dot in the center of the map below is location of our hotel, and Vliegveld Middel Zeeland – the EHMZ airfield.
The air traffic controllers recommended to see Veere, and indeed it was such a charming town!
The name Veere means “ferry”. Wolfert Van Borssele established a ferry and ferry house there in 1281. This ferry he called the “camper-veer” and it soon became known as “de Veer”. In the same year 1281 Wolfert also built the castle Sandenburg on one of the dikes. On 12 November 1282, Count Floris V. thereupon issued a charter by which Wolfert received the sovereignty to the land and castle with the ferry and ferry house. From that time on Wolfert was given the title of Lord Van der Veer. Veere received city rights in 1355.
Today, Veere has around 1.500 inhabitants.
We had a stroll around the town and its channels.
In the old part of Veere the streets looked like on the photo below – brick walls with entrances to the residencies. From outside one couldn’t see what lies behind these walls. It reminded me of the old streets
We continued our tour, and stopped by villages, churches, castles, and other places we found interesting.
The Noorderhooft lighthouse on the westernmost point of Zeeland:
The iron-cast lighthouse was built in 1875, it is 16.1 m high, and is active.
In Vlissingen we began getting hungry, and were looking for a restaurant. After a short walk there we decided to drive further to Middelburg.
When we walked in to the Middelburg market square and saw its ravishing castle, both Anne and I concluded that our long drive was all the money worth.
Despite being hungry, we first spent 10-15 minutes for taking photos of that gorgeous building.
The building was a town hall in the old days; today it is a contemporary art center internationally known for its extraordinary exhibitions.
There were several restaurants on the market square, and we chose the one that had mussels on the menu.
After that delightful dinner, followed by a delicious ice-cream, we drove back to our hotel. We were very tired, and it was late. The following day we were going to meet with the rest of our group at lunch time in the airport.
When we checked in to our hotel, we asked “How early can we get breakfast?” When we came back we asked a different question “How late can we have breakfast?” It was served till 10:00 and we were happy to get a longer sleep, before heading for the flight to Britain.