From the Afsluitdijk the Wadden coast stretches out from Friesland in a gentle curve to the Lauwersmeer lake area. Man created this land behind the dikes with its old fishing villages and a few simple harbours as gateways to the islands. You’ll find salt-tolerant nature outside the dikes and a whole lot more on offer inside the dikes: wide open landscapes, horizon, mound villages with medieval churches, darkness and glorious silence. Here was once seabed. Villages well-known from the Elfsteden (Eleven cities) such as Workum, Harlingen, Franeker, Leeuwarden and Dokkum are also located here. Wayward and free. A Wadden land of excess you simply must see to believe.
Learn all about the old coastal fishing and the life of the residents of the double-sided Paesens-Moddergat.
Afsluitdijk Wadden Center
Living on the edge of salt and fresh water? Explore the area with a guide from the Waddenvereniging and It Fryske Gea.
Hegebeintum
Discover everything about how the dwelling hill was created and then dug away in the 19th and 20th centuries in the Hegebeintum visitors centre.