Photos of Northern Friesland, the Netherlands

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Northern Friesland

The north of Fryslân, roughly north of the Frisian capital of Leeuwarden and the old cities of Harlingen and Franeker, is relatively lightly populated, a land of meadows, windmills, quiet villages and old churches, some built on "terpen", the artificial hills dating back to the Middle Ages, which the Frisians built as an escape when the land was flooded during storms.

View from Sédyk
 
Sheep near Harlingen
 
Wijnaldum
 
Pietersbierum
 
Nije Buorren, Sexbierum
 
Sexbierum
 
Kaatsen in Sexbierum
 
Walburga State
 
Farm near Sexbierum
 
Meadow near Franeker
 
Church of Salverd
 
Van Harinxmakanaal
 
Frisian farmland
 
View to Deinum
 
Church of Deinum
 
Entering Blessum
 
Church of Blessum
 
Buorren, Blessum
 
Canal, Ritsemazijl
 
Houses in Jelsum
 
Church of Jelsum
 
Gravestones, Jelsum
 
Farm house in Jelsum
 
Windmill in Stiens
 
Hijum church
 
Market, Dokkum
 
Dokkum Town Hall
 
Canal in Dokkum
 
Water pump, Dokkum
 
Farm near Waaxens
 
House near Waaxens
 
Buddhist monastery
 
Stupa, Hantum
 
Cloister and prayer wheels
 
Altar in main hall
 
Hantum and windmill
 
De Hantumermolen
 
De Hantumermolen
 
Archimedes screw
 
Windmill, Ternaard
 
Church of Wierum
 
Groate Kerk
 
Kada to Sint Jacobiparochie
 
Along the Kouwe Faart
 
Ouwe and Kouwe Faart
 
Zwarte Haan
 
The Waddenzee
 
De Slikwerker
 

One of the villages that seems to intrigue many because of its name, is Sexbierum, about 12 kilometres north of Harlingen. Its name, however, is derived from Sixtebeeren, mentioned in 1322 and is thought to be derived from a combination of the name of Pope Sixtus II and the Old Frisian word for house, bere. The Frisian name is now Seisbierrum.

The largest town here is Dokkum, an old fortified town that was built on two "terpen". It is near this town that in the year 754 Boniface, an Anglo-Saxon abbot from Exeter (Wessex, England) who had been sent to convert the heathen Frisians, was killed by a band of Frisian bandits, who then got drunk, started killing each other and found that instead of booty there were only books and manuscripts, that they then tried to destroy. It was here that Christian Frisians later built a memorial church on a terp.

A unique site near the Frisian village of Hantum, about 8 kilometres north of Dokkum, is Karma Deleg Chö Phel Ling, a vihara, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, that was founded here in 1986 by Chödje Lama Gawang Rinpoche and built in 1993. The main chorten (stupa) is surrounded by prayer wheels. Apparently the initiative was taken in the early eighties by a group of hippies who started a commune there; the request to build the stupa was granted on condition that a ring of trees would be planted around it, so it wouldn't be too prominently competing with Hantum's church steeple in the Frisian landscape.