The wadden island of Texel has a wild side on the North Sea and a tame side on the Wadden Sea. In between, 14,000 sheep watch over a miniature world to which many regular guests have lost their hearts.
The Netherlands is a high-risk corona area. How long this will be the case cannot be foreseen. But even in summer the idyllic North Sea island of Texel could be an ideal holiday destination – especially for families.
A small paradise that is spared from all bad things – many people are familiar with this wishful thinking, not least through children’s and youth literature.
At the very end, the ingenious professor Habakuk Tibatong invents a kind of cheese dome from Max Kruse’s Urmel series, under which the paradisiacal island of Titiwu becomes invisible and out of the reach of world powers. For many of its regular guests, the Dutch North Sea island of Texel is such a real paradise: a better world in the sea, unaffected by fashions and times.
Popular holiday destination for residents of North Rhine-Westphalia
The Wadden Island above the northern tip of Holland has its fans mainly in North Rhine-Westphalia, but of course not only there. One speaks of Texel addiction between Essen and Wuppertal. Many of the annual Texel holidaymakers have known the island since they were children. In the 1960s it was their first holiday destination abroad, now they are holidaying here with their grandchildren.
The sheep greet them every spring
The white tower of the church of Hoorn looks like a block of wood, which you can already see from the car ferry. Texel, a world of toys. When the many thousands of lambs leap in the pastures in spring and the tulips bloom, the island looks like an idyll from a picture book.
There are more sheep than people here, around 14,000. One could almost believe that the sheep rule the island. If so, it is frugal rulers who are satisfied with little. Day in and day out, whether in the hail or in the scorching heat, they stand outside and mumble their grass. The picture has been unchanged since the 1960s and probably much longer.
Wonderful miniature world on Texel
Everything you need is available in miniature on Texel. The largest town, Den Burg, exudes a pulse-accelerating capital city flair, especially on Mondays when there is market there. Then the places under the ancient chestnut tree in the main square are hotly contested. Anyone who has got hold of one orders “koffie and appelgebak”.
From the church tower you can see endlessly over the red tiled roofs of the Dutch houses and the fields and fields behind them to the edge of the forest. Behind it you can sense the sea. The relatively large forest area distinguishes Texel from other Wadden Islands and makes the southwest of the island the most diverse area in terms of landscape.
De Kroog – a tourist stronghold
The De Koog tourist hotspot is located on the edge of the forest. In the 1970s it was still a dreamy place where you could buy dried starfish in souvenir shops. After all, the postcard stands and shrimp nets, with which you never catch anything, are still there. But the brightly painted restaurants and bars did not exist 50 years ago. The petite church of the Reformed congregation looks a bit like an old lady at a teenage party. Here, it seems, the outside world has encroached on Texel.
Otherwise the familiar idyll is untouched. So much time, so much space. Actually there is only one real attraction – that Ecomare Natural History Museum with a sanctuary for seals. In summer, little howlers blink at people behind the parapet with their big dark eyes. One is immediately tempted to want to see sadness in it.
The show of the gray seals
Unlike in the 1970s and 1980s, when the seal population melted due to water pollution, the animals can now be seen again in the wild. From the port of Oudeschild on the Wadden Sea side, several ships go to the seal banks every day during the main season – a very attractive excursion.
On warm summer days, the seals loll in the sun like overweight beach vacationers, and the gray seals appear next to the ship and stick their noses out of the water. You shouldn’t touch it. “They are predators,” warns the captain.
Looking for lugworms and crabs
In between, a stop is made on an abandoned sandbank. Then the children can look for crabs and lugworms in the silt. If the ship is a cutter, shrimp are quickly caught on the way back and everyone gets a bag home with them.
The harbor itself is teeming with – inedible – crabs, which children catch in a simple and effective way: they spear some fried fish on a hair clip that has been bent apart, tie a thread to it and let this device sink into the water from the quay wall . The crabs instantly snap at it with their claws and cling so that they are easily pulled upwards. There they end up in a bucket and are then released back into the wild.
The good feeling of not having to do anything
All of this makes Texel the ideal holiday destination for families with children. The fact that there aren’t too many offers is an advantage. You don’t have to rush anywhere because you might be missing out on something else. Instead, you just rent a couple of bicycles and ride the crunching mussel paths here and there. Then you keep coming across little discoveries. For example the Café Het Turfveld in the middle of the disheveled pine forest on the edge of the dune. Highly recommended: vanilla ice cream with strawberries.
A wonderful cycle path is «het Skillepaadje» from the main holiday resort De Koog to the port of Oudeschild. The inconspicuous trenches next to it were once very precious: the rust-brown water standing there is particularly ferrous and therefore very long-lasting. That made it popular with the United East India Company (VOC) in the 17th and 18th centuries. The mighty three-masters of the first joint stock company in history lay in the roadstead of Texel in front of Oudeschild before they set off on their journey to what is now Indonesia. Next stop: Cape of Good Hope, South Africa.
By then, Texel’s iron-rich water had to quench the thirst of more than 300 soldiers and sailors. The landowners around Oudeschild became rich as a result. Some beautiful properties still bear witness to this, such as the Brakestein estate, which is currently being restored.
Bike tours with the whole family
The lighthouse on the northern tip of the island and the nature reserve De Slufter are also worthwhile destinations for cycling tours. The North Sea has broken through the ring of dunes here and created a landscape of which one cannot say with certainty whether it belongs to the water or the land. In July and August the Slufter is colored purple by blooming sea lavender. During autumn storms combined with spring tides, everything turns into a boiling water surface. Like much of the island, the area is a bird’s paradise.
The North Sea side is the wild side of the island, the Wadden side the tame, civilized side, protected by dikes all around. The cycle path leads over the top of the dike, so that on one side you can see the Wadden Sea, which is glittering in the sunshine, and on the other side you can see green pastures with grazing sheep.
Over and over again, views emerge like in a painting by Jacob van Ruisdael or Jan van Goyen: a Dutch mill that rises lonely over the polders and is reflected in a body of water. Or one of the typical small barns with a truncated roof against the wind, which here always comes from the northwest. They look like small farms that have been cut in half.
Bad weather doesn’t scare anyone here
The most beautiful thing about Texel is the endlessly long and wide beach on the North Sea side. Even on the hottest weekends during vacation time, everyone will find their secluded spot here, you only have to walk a few meters. Of course: good Weather is not guaranteed here, but that doesn’t matter. An extensive Icelandic depression is not bad news for Texel holidaymakers, because then blowing through on the beach is all the more reliable.
The wind drives shimmering sand in front of you, so that you squint your eyes, a salty aroma lies on your tongue. In addition, the ocean roar of the sea, mixed by the weird screams of the seagulls and the high-frequency beeping of the oystercatchers.
The world of sheep, seagulls and howls
In the evening the breakwaters are exposed in the silver silt, hordes of gulls look for food. A little later, large families and dog-loving couples dine together in the beach restaurant Paal 17 near De Koog. Bare feet on wooden planks, rattle of cutlery and plates, quiet laughter, scraps of conversation.
After dessert – the parents are still sitting together with a glass of red wine – grandpa climbs with the grandchildren between the beach grass on the dune. The applied flags of Holland and the ice cream advertisements flutter in the wind. Behind it roll, in perpetual motion, the white crowned waves and waves.
In the last light of the evening, a container ship passes by on the horizon. It belongs to the other world far out there. Texel has nothing to do with it. Texel belongs to the sheep and seagulls, howlers and children. And all those who need a certain spot on earth to fix their personal place of longing there.
Arrival to Texel
– Getting there: The car ferry in Den Helder leaves up to twice an hour. On the days of the start of the holiday – especially in North Rhine-Westphalia – there may still be waiting times.
– Entry and Corona situation: Before traveling to the Netherlands is currently warned, the country is a high-risk corona area. Before returning to Germany, travelers must take a corona test.
– Information: Dutch Office for Tourism & amp; Convention, Postfach 27 05 80, 50511 Cologne (www.holland.com).
This article was written by Christoph Driessen, dpa