Texel Island
Here we are, almost two months removed our our trip to the Netherlands and I am just now getting back to the posts. Hopefully I can pick up the pace and get caught up a little more quickly. The next couple are from our short stay on Texel Island in the North Sea, at the north end of the Netherlands. We had a great, relaxing stay on the island and got to do a bit of exploration!
After the long day of driving yesterday, I had hoped that I would sleep well, but that was not to be. I slept horribly last night - we went to bed a bit late, but I could not fall asleep, and it was almost 4:00 a.m. before I managed to fall asleep. Which meant that mom had to forcibly wake Mackenzie and I up at around 9:00 a.m.s, so as to not waste our whole day. We didn’t have a lot of time of Texel and we wanted to make the most of it. We went and had breakfast in the hotel restaurant (included with our room), and to spend a bit of time planning our day. Breakfast was good, but we were off to a bit of a late start.
The weather was still quite unsettled, so we decided to do a bit of exploring by car. Our first stop was at a local cheese maker, which had a little exhibit/museum and of course lots of cheese. We got to taste some cheese, which was delicious, and we bought some to take home.
Inside the cheese shop at the farm on Texel.
From there, we continued to explore the island, and see as much as we could. Mom had wanted to see if we could see some birds, and the maps we had indicated that there were some marked spots along some of the smaller backroads, so that seemed promising. So we drove along the backroads, really enjoying the scenery. Unfortunately, the birding did not really work out for us. We tried to stop at some of the marked “Nature Reserves”, but they were generally just small ponds along the side of the road. We saw a few birds, but generally it was not very productive. There was a bird hide at one, and we could see some things off in the distance. But this group of “birders” showed up, making a huge amount of noise and generally taking over the place. It was pretty obnoxious. So we left.
The one stop we made at the bird hide had lots of Graylag Geese, but also some Eurasian Spoonbills, which was a new addition to the life list!
We continued our driving tour around the island, and our next stop was the town of Oudeschild, which was hyped as the “prettiest town in Texel”. I don’t think any of us really thought that was the case… It has an OK little harbour, but overall we were left unimpressed. Partly that was because we spent a whole lot of time walking around the more residential part of the town, and didn’t really see much. We eventually found the town center, but there was not a lot too it. There was a museum in town that had an old windmill , but we didn’t really feel like paying the admission fees to go inside.
IN the harbour at Oudeschild, close to where we parked to go explore the town.
The old windmill in the town center, as part of the museum. We just looked from the outside.
The three of us heading out on our ride!
So we hopped in the car and headed back to the hotel. Nothing is more than 15 or 20 minutes away, so it was all pretty easy. Our plan for the afternoon, weather permitting, was to rent bikes and ride to the north point of the island to see the lighthouse. The weather had started to look better, so we rented 3 e-bikes and headed out. I had not tried riding e-bikes before, so I was looking forward to giving it a go, and seeing what the experience was like. Given how flat the island is, I didn’t expect a lot.
Of course, once we decided to rent the bikes and head out, the skies opened up for an absolute downpour. We huddled under the bike shelters to ride it out (it couldn’t last too long could it?). It took a little while, but eventually it let up, and then we headed out.
The lighthouse was about 15 km from the hotel and gave us an opportunity to experience the amazing Dutch bike paths! They are so good! And with the e-bikes, it was easy riding! The path mirrored the huge sand dunes, weaving in among them and passing through some beautiful landscapes, including huge swaths of heather, beach grasses and even some small stretches of forest. It was mostly flat, with some small hills. Easy riding.
An image of Texel. We were starting at basically the blue “dot”, and riding up to the very north end, where it states “Vuurtoren Texel”. It ended up being a good distance to ride.
The weather was generally good as we made the ride north, but we got a few rain showers along the way. It took us about an hour to get up to the lighthouse. It was pretty cool, sitting on this huge stretch of Beach that seemed to go on forever! Even at close to high tide, the beach was massive. We had bought a ticket to climb the lighthouse, and were perfectly on time for our window.
The lighthouse was pretty big - 65’ I think to the part we could visit; 115’ in total - with just one narrow set of stairs to go up and down. The formal name is the Eierland Lighthouse. The lighthouse was designed by Quirinus Harder and construction began on 25 July 1863. The lighthouse was built on top of a 20-metre high sand dune, and was lit on 1 November 1864. At that time, the distance from the lighthouse to the sea was 3 kilometres. It’s much closer now, as you will see from the photos.
Initially the lighthouse had a kerosene lamp, but now has an electrical lamp. The lighthouse was originally red, but in the course of time that colour faded to pink. In 1977 the tower was covered with a red plastic coating. During the Georgian Uprising of Texel of April 1945 the lighthouse suffered heavy damage. It was repaired by constructing a new wall around it and a new upper-level construction. As you walk up, you can see the wall-inside-the-wall, as well as bullet holes from the second world war. In this reconstruction process the lighthouse lost two of its original nine storeys.
There were some interesting exhibits on each floor, and was well worth the visit. After climbing up (and back down) we walked down to the beach. There was a kid flying a cool kit, and it looked like you could rent little cars that were pulled by kites. It looked like fun! We thought we should have a drink and a snack before riding back.
We also had a ticket for the marine rescue/aquarium that we were hoping to get to that afternoon. But it was not to be. The service at the beach bar was horrible! We asked for a menu, which took 10 minutes to show up, and then our server basically ignored us. I flagged her down at one point, and she said she’d be back, and then for the next 15 minutes proceeded to avoid us. So we left. Brutal. We rode about half way back to the hotel, making a stop at another restaurant along the way. The service was just as bad - we got an order in, but they must have lost it, as we had to ask about it after 20 minutes. No apologies, nothing. It was not a good afternoon for lunch. Needless to say, we didn’t make it to see the seals. But we did ride a bunch more, getting to almost 35km on the day. It was really nice riding, and the bike trails are just amazing!
The map of our bike ride up to the lighthouse. Thew ay back was basically the same, so no need to post it.
The back lawn of the hotel. While it wasn’t super warm, it was a nice afternoon and we were able to enjoy a drink before heading out to dinner.
We returned the bikes, ordered drinks at the bar and sat in the back lawn of the hotel, overlooking their little pond and enjoyed a bit of the sunset. Then it got cold and we needed to head inside. We walked back into town that night and had dinner at a Greek restaurant. The food was amazing, and we stopped for ice cream for desert. Pretty good vacation living. It was a quiet night at the hotel, getting caught up in photos and writing notes for the blog.