First published: 30/07/24.

Tony H. 1.5

Schokland

Schokland (Inscribed)

Schokland by Tony H.

Visited in April 2024. I arrived to the parking lot of the Schokland Museum on a drizzly and grey Thursday. As I expected there wasn't many other cars parked there but when I entered the museum shop/ticket office, there were surprisingly many people browsing through the souvenir selection. However, I was the only one who was actually visiting the museum itself. After buying the ticket (the ticket seller was bit baffled to see non-Dutch visitor) I entered the museum area, which I had just for myself for the whole hour I spend in there.

The museum covers really well the history of Schokland from the Neolithic times to current times. The earliest history exhibitions however felt more geared towards children, and I enjoyed much more reading and learning about the "end times" of the island and how hard the life was back then, when the island was slowly turning more and more uninhabitable.

The rest of the museum area consists of the church of former Middelbuurt village, the remains of the sea walls and other remains of the Middelbuurt village (pictured are tombstones that were used to build the sea wall). Inside the church there was a temporary exhibition about hippos. The exhibition was only in Dutch but I gathered that ancient hippos roamed on Schokland at one point in history. Anyway, quite random exhibition topic, especially inside the church. I had received a brochure from the ticket office that had information about different objects that were lying around the museum yard. Like I said earlier I spent around an hour in the museum. You have good views around the museum of the very typical Dutch polder landscape and in April it included few tulip fields, too. After the museum visit I had lunch in the excellent restaurant on the site, which was packed with locals. The restaurant is even on the top 100 list of the best restaurant terraces in the Netherlands (it definitely wasn't terrace weather on that day, so I can't comment on that)!

There is a walking and cycling route around the whole former island. I was considering walking part of it but because the weather kept being rainy and I didn't really have shoes to walk in the mud, I then decided to skip it.

Is it a worthy WHS? Well, the island represents in its history how the landscape in the Netherlands has changed through millennia, so for that it's important site in Dutch history. But it's not an exciting WHS to visit. The museum is well-done and people who take care of it are clearly very proud of what they do (I noticed that was a theme in Dutch WH sites). I guess it has its place on the list but it's definitely not a site I would be excited to go see again.

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