Zeeland

Yesterday I hopped in the car and headed to Zeeland, the most south-westerly province of the Netherlands ie the little finger-like islands. It's comparable in many ways to Norfolk, in terms of the landscape, the emptiness and the vastly reduced gene pool.

The thing about Zeeland is, hence its name, that it was surrounded entirely by the sea/river delta. In 1953, there was a huge flood which killed thousands in the Netherlands and in England. As a result, the Dutch embarked on a huge series of dams which would reduce the reach of the tide into the river delta, shortening the length of dykes exposed to the sea by 640km. To do this, they constructed a series of huge dams 'twixt the islands.

The Delta Works as they are known are listed as one of the 7 Wonders of the Modern World and they really are rather impressive, they seem to go on as far as the eye can see and its hard to imagine the sea being able to overcome them, notwithstanding an event like the recent tsunami in Japan. Hence the rather self-confident 'motto' of the Delta Works: 

"Here, the tide is controlled by the moon, the wind and man" ... sounds much better in Dutch. We then went for a drink in the village which we had to share with half the elderly population of the Bundesrepublik.