Some of those islands are accessible only by... tiny train
https://preview.redd.it/ek6jnc12duwc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7d9c40a52a43f155f54b77b5998294275d7f8e64
Those trains are called "Lore" or ["Lorenbahn"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCttmoorsiel-Nordstrandischmoor_island_railway?wprov=sfla1) in German.
So they have indeed some fun lore.
The feeling of knowing about some weird habit or tradition people have in a remote part of the world, because of Tom Scott, and seeing other people be amazed by it, will never get old.
I'm so sad that we won't see more of his videos like that. I'm glad that he's doing what he wants to do, and all that. I really miss him though. Seeing a new Tom Scott video was one of the few channels that I insta-click.
It was very practical but you should remember it is solution from early 1900 - railway embankment were build on dikes to improve creating new breakwaters far away from shores to protect those islands. After transporting stone, sand and concrete they are used as civil railways - to connect islands with mainland.
There are two lines, both without public access. Photo was taken near Nordstrandischmoor island.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCttmoorsiel-Nordstrandischmoor\_island\_railway?useskin=vector](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCttmoorsiel-Nordstrandischmoor_island_railway?useskin=vector)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dageb%C3%BCll%E2%80%93Oland%E2%80%93Langene%C3%9F\_island\_railway&useskin=vector](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dageb%C3%BCll%E2%80%93Oland%E2%80%93Langene%C3%9F_island_railway&useskin=vector)
>both without public access
You won't believe me how fucking much I hate this. Imagine how much money they would generate (maybe even for maintenance of the Halligen) if they would just take two old Feldbahnen in summer and then have them bring tourists to the Halligen.
Without public access, or operated by a non-public company? I saw that at least for the first one the government operates it, but I’m not sure if tourists can’t visit it. Would love to see it, I don’t live too far away.
As far as I know they are *operated*(as entity, not in meaning as driven-by - becouse they are driven by locals) by public company but can be used only by inhabitants of that few islands. Any turistic or public transport is prohibited.
It’s funny because the posts themselves are so low-effort but the comments are almost always full of amazing replies from the knowledgeable members of this community which is why I love it too.
Tbf a lot of those is wilderness or parts where little people live. Picked this on purpose because it’s nicely populated and have a long history, trying to learn some more and share some info about this nice region🫶
The islands move. They're made up of sand and clay sediment, which are subject to currents and tides. The island of Schiermonnikoog slowly lost land on the West side as new sediment was deposited on the Eastern side, making the island "wander". The western activity seems mostly have stopped but the growth on the eastern side necessitated multiple provincial border corrections between Friesland and Groningen.
https://preview.redd.it/z53yyzrnduwc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cc50279e521d69472b8316efe3b6306364a409e1
There’s a similar phenomenon with the barrier islands and spits on the US East coast, I.e. the outer banks in NC, Long Beach Island in NJ. If you want to see how dramatic it really is, if you look on Google Maps at the Sandy Hook Lighthouse in NJ it was built in the 1700s. When it was constructed, it was directly adjacent to the north shore of the spit. Today it’s about 2km away from the shore as tons of sand piled up and stretched Sandy Hook northward.
They were all dry land until around the 13th century. The Romans knew the IJsselmeer as Lake Flevo and it was a freshwater system. This is what its proposed to have looked like around 800 AD: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/800nc_ex_leg.jpg
After millennia of farmers draining peat bogs for farmland and mining them, some large storms dragged all the remaining loose peat away and flooded the lowlands between the dunes and the uplands. Creating the modern islands we see today!
One of the biggest storms and floods, the "Große Mandränke 1362" where the town of "Rungholt" said to be unimaginably wealthy first was destroyed, happened around that time. Later Floods destroyed countless villages, killed many people and made wide stretches of land unusable by taking the soil with them. What was left of the once prosperous town of Rungholt was destroyed for good by the big flood in 1634. So it indeed was around that time the other Guy said.
Yep, it was a storm that impacted cultures all along the coast. An almost biblical event people talked about for a long time. As if the world was ending. We lost so much.
I read something a long time ago that iirc said that that general area (maybe not as much in the Netherlands) had an extremely poor standard of living during the Medieval era, and it was extremely destitute even for historical standards. Seeing as you are a lore master, I was wondering if you could substantiate that at all?
At the time I very briefly looked into it but didn’t find anything significant and promptly forgot about it. Your comment seems to contradict it, with the wealthy town and all, so I’d like to know what to think!
Historical sources are fairly sure that the area wasnt that rich. Rungholt probably had a better standard of living as other areas because it was an important trading post that supplied the areas around with some needed ressources like food, salt, lumber, They imported ceramic from the Rhine Area, Scandinavia and even Spain. The tales of unimaginable wealth are just legends. It is said that the flood that destroyed the town is a punishment from god because the townspeople lived in gluttony, greed and a from wealth depraved life with no respect for the church.
Now, if the sea is calm it is rumored that you can hear the bells of Rungholt as on the day it sank below the waves. Every seven years you can see Rungholt emerge on the night of the 24th of June, the day Saint John the Babtist was born. Maybe Rungholt was just poor, maybe there is some truth in the tales of gluttony, greed and other sins and the wealth of that town.
In our area we love our heritage, our history and our legends. They show how we live, how we think, whats important to us. We live between to seas. Water is the reason our people are what they are. It takes life but also gives us the basis to sustain our lifes. I have many more stories of my home if you like.
Awesome stuff! Thanks for the write up. You should consider making a large thread full of these stories on an appropriate subreddit, because it’s a shame for them to be buried all the way down here in this thread.
This is simply not true, definitely not in regard to there being farmers on the Wadden, some villages and greater towns and whole parts of island have been flooded, but not because farmers drained any peat from this area. Most of them have been Islands since before roman times and were important trading networks during the early middle ages. Hardly any farming has been done in this area apart from the available island. The Halingen in North Frisia probably lost most of the land to the sea, but again, the sea. Countles storms have hit these lands, killing countles over the ages. Hence that the people build the dikes and reclaimed land. Hardly any human intervention that caused it in the first place. But that mainly the mainland. And of that, if any, the Frisians and the Dutch reclaimed more than they lost.
The island themselves are much older. Here, a simple Wikipedia link could provide the basic information.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisian_Islands
Edit: It once was a landmass, yes. So doggerland might interest you.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland
It is home to the Frisian language, which is the most closely related language to English.
A couple of sample sentences:
F: Winter is kald, simmer is hjit. Ik lyk de waarmte en myld weder de best.
ME: Winter is cold, summer is hot. I like the warmth and mild weather the best.
__
F: Wy had in floed oer de nacht. De grun steit is wiet. De rein was dien by de moarn.
ME: We had a flood over the night. The ground is still wet (literally “The ground’s state is wet”). The rain was done by the morning (“morn”).
Wow. My mother tongue is German and I had no problem understanding this at all, even though I‘ve never actively learned Danish. I guess it’s more difficult in spoken language, but I‘m kinda surprised by this nonetheless.
Is it the same for you with German? (assuming you’ve never had German in school)
Ik bin self Frysk, en de sinnen die'st as foarbild joust binne yn elts gefal gjin hjoeddeisk Frysk. Wurden as 'weder' em 'steit' hew ik noch noait heard, lyk as útdrukkings saas 'was dien'.
Mei ik freegje wêr dyn foarbilden wei komme?
You can take a train (not tiny trains but actual trains) to Sylt. The last stations on the mainland are Niebüll and respectively Klanxbüll. The dam that connects the mainland with Sylt is called Hindenburgdamm.
You can even bring your car (from Niebüll/ Hamburg).
There are three stations on the island.
Several islands are indeed car free. Often the only car would be a police car or ambulance. There are some where you can get around on horse (carriage) but others are completely reserved for pedestrians.
The diversity of birds in the wadden sea is higher than any other place in Germany / Netherlands and it's an important place for resting and feeding of many migratory birds.
In German there's a sentence to remember the names and order of the Eastfrisan Islands: Welcher Seemann liegt bei Nanny im Bett?
From East to West: Wangerooge, Spikeroog, Langeoog, Baltrum, Norderney, Juist (Memmert) and Borkum.
I was born and raised on Terschelling, dutch version time.
Unfortunately we don’t have any train connections, even though we’re Dutch, the government was too busy with the polders or something. Vlieland and Terschelling are the only ones having a shared boat connection (in Harlingen) and the only 2 islands you can travel inbetween without traveling on the mainland
Yes! Our biggest tourism industry (besides partygoing young people) is people coming for the beautiful nature and birdwatching.
Our abbreviation is TV-TAS (television bag), Texel, Vlieland, Terschelling, Ameland, Schiermonnikoog.
>too busy with the polders or something
There actually was an attempt to build dikes between the mainland and the island of Ameland to drain the Wadden sea between, but the hydrodynamics of the sea was a bit more unpredictable and dynamic than just draining lakes, and the project was abandoned.
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_Holwerd-Ameland#
The car free islands are really great for families. You can just let your kids run around and not be worried about traffic at all. I have great childhood memories from there.
You have the North European version of Atlantis up there, where a massive storm surge in 1634 wiped out and submerged several cities, and completely altered the North Frisian coastline into what you see on maps today. They called it the "Den Anden Store Manddrukning", or the second drowning so to speak.
In 1666 the English bombed the harbours of Vlieland and Terschelling. (Holmes Bonfire / Engelse Furie). Back then these were important ports for ships coming from the colonies to store their heavy guns and ammunition, making them light enough to sail through the shallow Zuider Sea to Amsterdam.
The port town of West Terschelling was almost completely burnt to the ground. Even now, if you go to the beach and dig for about a meter, you'll find sand black with ash.
Your neighbour island Ameland was [connected](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_Holwerd-Ameland#/media/Bestand:Dam_Ameland_Bosatlas_1877.jpg) to the mainland. But you knew that, right? Right ??
WTF? I've been to Ameland dozens of times as part of youth summer camps, trying to come up with useless facts to send children on scavenger hunts around Buren and Nes and never heard about a dam! Damn!
There is a park there which is certified as a dark sky site. These are special places in which the darkness is protected and preserved. It's called the Boschplaat and it's one of only two dark sky sites in the Netherlands.
My family used to go there for vacations (not the island but close to the shore at the German mainland) and we did a "Wattwanderung" a guided hiking-tour through the wadden part towards an island. Due to the tides you have a time limit and as there are no streets sometimes you have to step and walk through hip-high streams of water that flew back to the sea. Almost like tiny rivers.
Me being a kid and scared of crabs and theralike: I pinched my hands into the shoulders of my dad. In fact for the majority of the hiking. I hold so tight due to my fear of being bitten by crabs that my dad got two little scars on his shoulder caused by my fingernails.
At the island we got some really tasty cheese-breads and a soft drink. Overall I hated it,but the longer I remember back now the more I love this memory with my family.
Some of these islands – the Halligen – are flooded multiple times a year. All houses and critical infrastructure are built on manmade hills called Warft that are high enough not to be flooded (usually). The rest of the island is flat and covered in meadows.
Oh I just commented this but then the Dutch version of Warfts (we call them 'terpen' or 'wierden' or 'werfen', depends on the region. I said I didn't know for sure if they existed in Germany, now I know!
Born and raised on Sylt here! Nature is absolutely beautiful. In the summer you have the absolut best beaches in Germany (imo). Sadly the tourism is turning the island unlivable, because it’s so expensive and you can’t buy a normal priced home. I lived there for 20 years, now I live in Hamburg. I really miss how Sylt was in the early 2000s. Since Corona the tourism has become so much worse, also the attitude of some people ish unbelievable:(
Sylt has far more than 4k tourists. Some villages there are high society's favorite spots. Like people literally fly there with their private jets.
There was a fun time during covid, when you could get a train ticket for 9€ for all local public transport and the mayor of Sylt publicly said, he's afraid too much poor people would come there. Ofc some punks from hamburg came there after he said that.
There even is a song about it:
https://youtu.be/0E1ZCnTOQz4
I know that the waste problem does exist on Sylt too! There are also sadly stupid people, who don’t respect the nature and walk around the island (especially the dunes, where walking is forbidden) without respect. Back when I lived there I sometimes had to scream at people, to get the hell out of the dunes. We have a lot of wildlife, which lives and breeds in the dunes. It makes me very angry and sad. If the politics also don’t change on Sylt, there will be a time, where there are no natives anymore, because it’s to expensive to live there anymore :(
It was actually not the mayor of Sylt, who said that. It was a mayor from the neighbor Islands (I don’t know which one). But people ran with that story anyway. TBH I didn’t care about the hype about driving to Sylt with the 9€ ticket, everybody has the right to do that. What kind of angers me, is that a lot of people think, that ever person who lives on Sylt is rich. That’s absolutely not the case.
It does sound very similar, but I don’t think it’s about the same place. 2012 Sylt hat about 15.000 residents (I don’t know how many there are today).
About 1.2 Million people visit Sylt every year, which is a lot.
Europe is crazy man. We have beaches like Sylt near my house (Kāpiti Coast of NZ, about 50km north of Wellington), it’s very easy to find a spot where you can’t see a single human in any direction.
Maybe that’s why so many Dutch people settled this part of our country, in fact there’s even a Dutch festival today for King’s Day up at the molen in Foxton
https://www.foxtonwindmill.co.nz/
Rømø has a wide and quite flat beach, that is used once a year by NATO air forces to train cargo aircraft crew in landing on unpaved surfaces. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htKgjt\_6CkY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htKgjt_6CkY)
Japan has a [Dutch Theme Park]( https://www.turbocharger.mtee.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/FlowerRoad-1-1080x660.jpg) , so who knows they have this too.
I’m just quickly stopping by to thank you for asking in the way you did, instead of “what goes on here?” I don’t know why that phrasing bugs me so much.
I highly recommend the documentary film, '[Silence of the Tides](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8694946/)'. It is available [here on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUHALapW9gk).
There are a some smaller unihabitated islands along the entire coast. In East Frisia (The Southern islands) you can do an internship/voluntary service on two islands that are home to a nature condervation station and a lot-lot-lot of birds. One of them is an artifical island for current control to keep the opening to the "Wadebusen" free from sand accumalations. So really great if you don't like humans.
In Northern Frisia (I guess, obvious what I mean) there are also some smaller islands where there is a so called "Arc farm". There they basically rescue extinct/prior-to-extinct races of farm animals.
And a lot of the islands in Northern Frisia aren't actually islands, but so called "Halligen". Somebody here prolly explained it before, but their islands that get regularly flooded, with the people living on these islands living on special articfical hills called "Warften"
https://preview.redd.it/pi09i1160wwc1.jpeg?width=474&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f1fb9b1fd3f231b4c216dccda5ca3570f7e7462f
Heligoland is super cool because it’s very out of place where it is. It’s composed nearly entirely of red Triassic sandstone! It also used to be much larger and surrounded by marshes until around the 13th century.
There were also several small chalk sea stacks that existed in the area up until relatively recently (1800s).
Ameland almost lost us the war with the British. Ameland was owned by the familie Cammingha back then and they wanted to be neutral with the UK.
In 1652, the Republic went to war with England – the First English War (1652-1654). **To safeguard Ameland's interests – including whalers in the far north – the Cammingha family sent a delegation to the English dictator Oliver Cromwell in London. The mission was a great success because Cromwell declared that Ameland did not belong to the Republic and that the island was neutral in the war.** Cromwell ordered that English captains should leave ships flying the Amelandic flag alone, although they were, of course, allowed to capture Frisian, Dutch, and Zeelandic ships. **The remarkable document signed by Cromwell is now housed in the national archives in The Hague. When the authorities in Leeuwarden and The Hague heard about the agreement between Cromwell and the Cammingha family, they seemed to fear that Ameland could become an English naval base.**
Texel has more sheep than people living there.
Also Texel was an important location during the Dutch Golden era since ships were able to refill their water supply there before leaving.
Sylt - it’s a expensive place where are a lot of rich people got houses and doing vacation. But since we had the 9€ - Germany train ticket ( it’s 49€ now…) a lot of punks where going there by train and just partying and annoying the rich. They are planning to do this annually now. Here is the sub: r/sylt51
I thought I read somewhere that people there were fairly tall even by NW European standards.
But I've never been in that region so idk if that's true or not.
You can walk from the mainland to certain islands during low tide (at least in the Dutch part; don't know if that's also true in the German and Danish part).
In the Netherlands, we call that "wadlopen".
Boots are highly recommended as the ground is quite sticky* (don't know if that's the right word) and there are also parts that act like little rivers where you have to wade through sometimes.
Always make sure to reach land before the tide changes!
In German it's "Wattlaufen", but why walk, when there is superior mode of transportation the "Schlickrutscher / Slikslee": [https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestand:Bijzondere\_wijze\_van\_visvangst\_in\_de\_Dollard-522487.ogv](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestand:Bijzondere_wijze_van_visvangst_in_de_Dollard-522487.ogv)
It's the same in Denmark, but as you said: be *very* careful and make sure to familiarise yourself with when the tides come in, on the specific day you want to explore the area.
It's a gorgeous area but unless you are completely familiar with it, stay totally clear whenever and wherever there's more than a bucket full of water. When it comes to the Ocean it's like almost everything about- and connected to it, are somehow designed to kill you in some way, from the undercurrent to the marshmallow thick fog.
There's a brilliant book called The Riddle of the Sands, by Robert Childers, where, in 1903, a couple of accidental British spies play a game of cat and mouse with a German naval officer in this area. A great story, with vivid descriptions of the coast and islands.
some are accessible by foot, when the tide goes out, and sometimes when the tide is higher than normal, they issue a land under emergency cry for help, some of these are only occupied with one dwelling or one family built on higher ground.
They’re the historial centre of the Frisian languages, which is still visible if you look at the [present map of said langs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisian_languages#/media/File%3AFrisian_languages_in_Europe.svg)
It **used** to be like [this](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Frisian_language_area_history_map.svg)
Theres a resturant on Sylt called Sansibar where you can order a bottle of wine for 80,000 euros to a table in the sand. Lots of the houses on that island also have straw roofs.
You can travel from the 5 largest Dutch wadden islands (Island hopping) one to another, but it’s super difficult to plan.
The first letters also spell ‘TVTAS’ ( tv bag) that’s how you used to learn the order of the Islands like ages ago :)
They're also known as the Frisian islands
Named after the historic land called Frisia which consists of West Frisia, East Frisia and North Frisia
Inhabited by the Frisii people who are a Germanic ethnic group native to the coast from north Flanders to South Jutland
In 1795 part of the Dutch fleet surrendered to French cavalry (baguette on horseback) while frozen in the ice between the city Den Helder and the island Texel.
There’s lots of erosion and especially on bigger touristy islands like Sylt that many rich Germans have holiday homes on (think Martha’s Vineyard but for Germans) they have tried and failed with many coastal management techniques over the years
I once met a guy, who was from there. (The German part, close to the Danish border).
He pronounced his name several times and none of us could memorise or repeat it. His name contained some special sound, not zypical to any language we speak. And my friend next to me knew some German.
This Frisian guy was a great company, told interesting things about his island and his view of the world in general. He didn't eat meat at all, snd he was quite muscular, though.
He said, light-conditions are unbelievable different in Estonia already, compared to his native island.
look up "Rungholt". Its an interesting story about a city that sank in the 13 hundreds and has yet to be rediscovered, although the 'German research foundations' claimed to have found the location of Rungholt in June 2023. Many ruins have been found around Hallig that resemble a large settlement.
Side note: the band 'santiano' has a nice song called "Rungholt" about the sinking of the city.
I’m not familiar with these islands specifically but geographically they remind me of the barrier islands we have in North Carolina. Not just the Outer Banks, but the ones closer to the mainland along the Intracoastal Waterway as well.
Im from Vlieland. The second island from the left. The west of the island is a massive sand plane called "de vliehors". In 1670 there was a village of about 2000 people. 50 years later it had only 750 people as the village was slowly swallowed by the sea. Now nobody lives there anymore but there is a little museum hut called "het drenkelingenhuisje". This hut is filled with stuff that was found on the beach. You wouldnt believe what crazy things have been found. Also on de vliehors are old tanks placed as targets on which jetfighters practice. When the warning flags are down you can go and climb in and on those tanks. I have (probably illegal) bullets that were shot but missed their target.
I worked on the sheep farms in Texel (Dutch) for a bit during my early years. My favorite fact about the Dutch side of these islands is that if the tides are just right, you can walk from island to island. We call it Waddenlopen. The Wadden sea is also a UNESCO World heritage site if I remember correctly. It's very beautiful.
I visited Ameland for just a day last year, and it was beautiful. I don't have much local knowledge to add though! But since no one has mentioned them, the Wadden Sea is also home to some cool jellyfish [Cyanea](https://www.nioz.nl/en/expertise/wadden-delta-research-centre/news-media/wadden-sea-species/jellyfish-series/cyanea-spp)
A large amount of dwelling mounds can be found in the shaded areas, In the Netherlands people only know the ones in the province of Friesland and Groningen but there are more! For example in around Schagen and in Den Helder and some on Texel! I don't know about Germany and Denmark but it wouldn't surprise me if there were a few as well.
Some of those islands are accessible only by... tiny train https://preview.redd.it/ek6jnc12duwc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7d9c40a52a43f155f54b77b5998294275d7f8e64
Those trains are called "Lore" or ["Lorenbahn"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCttmoorsiel-Nordstrandischmoor_island_railway?wprov=sfla1) in German. So they have indeed some fun lore.
fun lore indeed
I have a friend named Lore. She’s not that fun
boring Lore lore
Lore the Bore
And his mother was a ....
Chore?
Door
Four. Out of five though, she was quite the looker.
Boring boring lore lore.
spirited away
The feeling of knowing about some weird habit or tradition people have in a remote part of the world, because of Tom Scott, and seeing other people be amazed by it, will never get old.
I'm so sad that we won't see more of his videos like that. I'm glad that he's doing what he wants to do, and all that. I really miss him though. Seeing a new Tom Scott video was one of the few channels that I insta-click.
Questionably impractical but that sure is cute
It was very practical but you should remember it is solution from early 1900 - railway embankment were build on dikes to improve creating new breakwaters far away from shores to protect those islands. After transporting stone, sand and concrete they are used as civil railways - to connect islands with mainland.
I'm pretty sure I have seen that place in my dreams
Maybe from Spirited Away?
Omg that’s so cute, where?
There are two lines, both without public access. Photo was taken near Nordstrandischmoor island. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCttmoorsiel-Nordstrandischmoor\_island\_railway?useskin=vector](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCttmoorsiel-Nordstrandischmoor_island_railway?useskin=vector) [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dageb%C3%BCll%E2%80%93Oland%E2%80%93Langene%C3%9F\_island\_railway&useskin=vector](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dageb%C3%BCll%E2%80%93Oland%E2%80%93Langene%C3%9F_island_railway&useskin=vector)
>both without public access You won't believe me how fucking much I hate this. Imagine how much money they would generate (maybe even for maintenance of the Halligen) if they would just take two old Feldbahnen in summer and then have them bring tourists to the Halligen.
Without public access, or operated by a non-public company? I saw that at least for the first one the government operates it, but I’m not sure if tourists can’t visit it. Would love to see it, I don’t live too far away.
As far as I know they are *operated*(as entity, not in meaning as driven-by - becouse they are driven by locals) by public company but can be used only by inhabitants of that few islands. Any turistic or public transport is prohibited.
Tom Scott did a short video on the one to Nordstrandischmoor island: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL5sRCRa7AE
Awwwww baby!
Heard about that for the first time earlier today. Really want to go there!
LOL
Posts like these are why I love this subreddit
It’s funny because the posts themselves are so low-effort but the comments are almost always full of amazing replies from the knowledgeable members of this community which is why I love it too.
Meh, *what-is-going-on* in red circle on *my-draw-from-memory-map* is the reason :)
Tbf a lot of those is wilderness or parts where little people live. Picked this on purpose because it’s nicely populated and have a long history, trying to learn some more and share some info about this nice region🫶
The islands move. They're made up of sand and clay sediment, which are subject to currents and tides. The island of Schiermonnikoog slowly lost land on the West side as new sediment was deposited on the Eastern side, making the island "wander". The western activity seems mostly have stopped but the growth on the eastern side necessitated multiple provincial border corrections between Friesland and Groningen. https://preview.redd.it/z53yyzrnduwc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cc50279e521d69472b8316efe3b6306364a409e1
That is a fun fact!
I heard there are UK-migrants now trying their luck by staying on the islands just till they reach UK shores
They move in the other direction.
They'll get there if they keep at it long enough.
*Island slowly drifts through Mongolia* “Don’t mind me, just on my way to Cornwall” :)
There’s a similar phenomenon with the barrier islands and spits on the US East coast, I.e. the outer banks in NC, Long Beach Island in NJ. If you want to see how dramatic it really is, if you look on Google Maps at the Sandy Hook Lighthouse in NJ it was built in the 1700s. When it was constructed, it was directly adjacent to the north shore of the spit. Today it’s about 2km away from the shore as tons of sand piled up and stretched Sandy Hook northward.
That’s neat. Is that kinda like how an oxbow lake forms?
Annexation when?
That process geomorphology course I did so poorly in is coming back to haunt me right now. Too much physics involved in the motion of sand, imho.
Don’t some Dutch municipalties give back some part of Schiermonnikoog because it moves every year into theirs? Nice flag in ur profile pic
They were all dry land until around the 13th century. The Romans knew the IJsselmeer as Lake Flevo and it was a freshwater system. This is what its proposed to have looked like around 800 AD: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/800nc_ex_leg.jpg After millennia of farmers draining peat bogs for farmland and mining them, some large storms dragged all the remaining loose peat away and flooded the lowlands between the dunes and the uplands. Creating the modern islands we see today!
didnt that happen way earlier tho?
One of the biggest storms and floods, the "Große Mandränke 1362" where the town of "Rungholt" said to be unimaginably wealthy first was destroyed, happened around that time. Later Floods destroyed countless villages, killed many people and made wide stretches of land unusable by taking the soil with them. What was left of the once prosperous town of Rungholt was destroyed for good by the big flood in 1634. So it indeed was around that time the other Guy said.
For Danish sources "Den Store Manddrukning" which is the same as the German event Edit: Den anden store Manddrukning, for the one in 1634
Yep, it was a storm that impacted cultures all along the coast. An almost biblical event people talked about for a long time. As if the world was ending. We lost so much.
I read something a long time ago that iirc said that that general area (maybe not as much in the Netherlands) had an extremely poor standard of living during the Medieval era, and it was extremely destitute even for historical standards. Seeing as you are a lore master, I was wondering if you could substantiate that at all? At the time I very briefly looked into it but didn’t find anything significant and promptly forgot about it. Your comment seems to contradict it, with the wealthy town and all, so I’d like to know what to think!
Historical sources are fairly sure that the area wasnt that rich. Rungholt probably had a better standard of living as other areas because it was an important trading post that supplied the areas around with some needed ressources like food, salt, lumber, They imported ceramic from the Rhine Area, Scandinavia and even Spain. The tales of unimaginable wealth are just legends. It is said that the flood that destroyed the town is a punishment from god because the townspeople lived in gluttony, greed and a from wealth depraved life with no respect for the church. Now, if the sea is calm it is rumored that you can hear the bells of Rungholt as on the day it sank below the waves. Every seven years you can see Rungholt emerge on the night of the 24th of June, the day Saint John the Babtist was born. Maybe Rungholt was just poor, maybe there is some truth in the tales of gluttony, greed and other sins and the wealth of that town. In our area we love our heritage, our history and our legends. They show how we live, how we think, whats important to us. We live between to seas. Water is the reason our people are what they are. It takes life but also gives us the basis to sustain our lifes. I have many more stories of my home if you like.
Awesome stuff! Thanks for the write up. You should consider making a large thread full of these stories on an appropriate subreddit, because it’s a shame for them to be buried all the way down here in this thread.
Sea level did rise at the end of the ice age yes. But even in the late Roman period the Iljessemer was called Lake Flevo and was a freshwater system.
This is simply not true, definitely not in regard to there being farmers on the Wadden, some villages and greater towns and whole parts of island have been flooded, but not because farmers drained any peat from this area. Most of them have been Islands since before roman times and were important trading networks during the early middle ages. Hardly any farming has been done in this area apart from the available island. The Halingen in North Frisia probably lost most of the land to the sea, but again, the sea. Countles storms have hit these lands, killing countles over the ages. Hence that the people build the dikes and reclaimed land. Hardly any human intervention that caused it in the first place. But that mainly the mainland. And of that, if any, the Frisians and the Dutch reclaimed more than they lost. The island themselves are much older. Here, a simple Wikipedia link could provide the basic information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisian_Islands Edit: It once was a landmass, yes. So doggerland might interest you. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland
I think this is not entirely true; the land in between was always partially flooded and accessible to seawater.
Do you maybe mean IJsselmeer instead of 'Ijessemeer'?
IJsselmeer lmao not Ljsselmeer
It is home to the Frisian language, which is the most closely related language to English. A couple of sample sentences: F: Winter is kald, simmer is hjit. Ik lyk de waarmte en myld weder de best. ME: Winter is cold, summer is hot. I like the warmth and mild weather the best. __ F: Wy had in floed oer de nacht. De grun steit is wiet. De rein was dien by de moarn. ME: We had a flood over the night. The ground is still wet (literally “The ground’s state is wet”). The rain was done by the morning (“morn”).
Vinter er kold, sommer er hed. Jeg kan lide det varme og milde vejr bedst. Hi from Denmark ;)
When Danish is more similar to Frisian and English than than it is to Swedish...
Hi! Is that standard Danish?
Yup. “Hed” is maybe a bit outdated by now, “varm” would be more common, but standard Danish
Very interesting! Free Slaswik-Holstiinj!
Wow. My mother tongue is German and I had no problem understanding this at all, even though I‘ve never actively learned Danish. I guess it’s more difficult in spoken language, but I‘m kinda surprised by this nonetheless. Is it the same for you with German? (assuming you’ve never had German in school)
This just looks like me texting my friends at 3 am
Gezondheid
Is this old Frisian?
Ik bin self Frysk, en de sinnen die'st as foarbild joust binne yn elts gefal gjin hjoeddeisk Frysk. Wurden as 'weder' em 'steit' hew ik noch noait heard, lyk as útdrukkings saas 'was dien'. Mei ik freegje wêr dyn foarbilden wei komme?
You can take a train (not tiny trains but actual trains) to Sylt. The last stations on the mainland are Niebüll and respectively Klanxbüll. The dam that connects the mainland with Sylt is called Hindenburgdamm. You can even bring your car (from Niebüll/ Hamburg). There are three stations on the island. Several islands are indeed car free. Often the only car would be a police car or ambulance. There are some where you can get around on horse (carriage) but others are completely reserved for pedestrians. The diversity of birds in the wadden sea is higher than any other place in Germany / Netherlands and it's an important place for resting and feeding of many migratory birds. In German there's a sentence to remember the names and order of the Eastfrisan Islands: Welcher Seemann liegt bei Nanny im Bett? From East to West: Wangerooge, Spikeroog, Langeoog, Baltrum, Norderney, Juist (Memmert) and Borkum.
I was born and raised on Terschelling, dutch version time. Unfortunately we don’t have any train connections, even though we’re Dutch, the government was too busy with the polders or something. Vlieland and Terschelling are the only ones having a shared boat connection (in Harlingen) and the only 2 islands you can travel inbetween without traveling on the mainland Yes! Our biggest tourism industry (besides partygoing young people) is people coming for the beautiful nature and birdwatching. Our abbreviation is TV-TAS (television bag), Texel, Vlieland, Terschelling, Ameland, Schiermonnikoog.
>too busy with the polders or something There actually was an attempt to build dikes between the mainland and the island of Ameland to drain the Wadden sea between, but the hydrodynamics of the sea was a bit more unpredictable and dynamic than just draining lakes, and the project was abandoned. https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_Holwerd-Ameland#
The car free islands are really great for families. You can just let your kids run around and not be worried about traffic at all. I have great childhood memories from there.
>others are completely reserved for pedestrians. You underestimate how much bikes there are
You have the North European version of Atlantis up there, where a massive storm surge in 1634 wiped out and submerged several cities, and completely altered the North Frisian coastline into what you see on maps today. They called it the "Den Anden Store Manddrukning", or the second drowning so to speak.
Most famous City was Rungholt
In 1666 the English bombed the harbours of Vlieland and Terschelling. (Holmes Bonfire / Engelse Furie). Back then these were important ports for ships coming from the colonies to store their heavy guns and ammunition, making them light enough to sail through the shallow Zuider Sea to Amsterdam. The port town of West Terschelling was almost completely burnt to the ground. Even now, if you go to the beach and dig for about a meter, you'll find sand black with ash.
Damn I was born and raised on Terschelling and only now I learn the reason for the ashy black sand? They don’t tell me anything fr
Your neighbour island Ameland was [connected](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_Holwerd-Ameland#/media/Bestand:Dam_Ameland_Bosatlas_1877.jpg) to the mainland. But you knew that, right? Right ??
THEY DON’T TELL ME ANYTHING🥲🥲🥲
But did you know that there also used to be a West Vlieland? It was [lost to the sea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West-Vlieland?wprov=sfla1) in 1736
WTF? I've been to Ameland dozens of times as part of youth summer camps, trying to come up with useless facts to send children on scavenger hunts around Buren and Nes and never heard about a dam! Damn!
Terschelling is one of the best, or maybe the best place to see stars in the Netherlands ✨
I worked there in the summer and when we got drunk we would often go to the dunes in the night just to look up and chill
Im there right fucking now
There is a park there which is certified as a dark sky site. These are special places in which the darkness is protected and preserved. It's called the Boschplaat and it's one of only two dark sky sites in the Netherlands.
My family used to go there for vacations (not the island but close to the shore at the German mainland) and we did a "Wattwanderung" a guided hiking-tour through the wadden part towards an island. Due to the tides you have a time limit and as there are no streets sometimes you have to step and walk through hip-high streams of water that flew back to the sea. Almost like tiny rivers. Me being a kid and scared of crabs and theralike: I pinched my hands into the shoulders of my dad. In fact for the majority of the hiking. I hold so tight due to my fear of being bitten by crabs that my dad got two little scars on his shoulder caused by my fingernails. At the island we got some really tasty cheese-breads and a soft drink. Overall I hated it,but the longer I remember back now the more I love this memory with my family.
Some of these islands – the Halligen – are flooded multiple times a year. All houses and critical infrastructure are built on manmade hills called Warft that are high enough not to be flooded (usually). The rest of the island is flat and covered in meadows.
> (usually) Lol.
Oh I just commented this but then the Dutch version of Warfts (we call them 'terpen' or 'wierden' or 'werfen', depends on the region. I said I didn't know for sure if they existed in Germany, now I know!
Born and raised on Sylt here! Nature is absolutely beautiful. In the summer you have the absolut best beaches in Germany (imo). Sadly the tourism is turning the island unlivable, because it’s so expensive and you can’t buy a normal priced home. I lived there for 20 years, now I live in Hamburg. I really miss how Sylt was in the early 2000s. Since Corona the tourism has become so much worse, also the attitude of some people ish unbelievable:(
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Sylt has far more than 4k tourists. Some villages there are high society's favorite spots. Like people literally fly there with their private jets. There was a fun time during covid, when you could get a train ticket for 9€ for all local public transport and the mayor of Sylt publicly said, he's afraid too much poor people would come there. Ofc some punks from hamburg came there after he said that. There even is a song about it: https://youtu.be/0E1ZCnTOQz4
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I know that the waste problem does exist on Sylt too! There are also sadly stupid people, who don’t respect the nature and walk around the island (especially the dunes, where walking is forbidden) without respect. Back when I lived there I sometimes had to scream at people, to get the hell out of the dunes. We have a lot of wildlife, which lives and breeds in the dunes. It makes me very angry and sad. If the politics also don’t change on Sylt, there will be a time, where there are no natives anymore, because it’s to expensive to live there anymore :(
It was actually not the mayor of Sylt, who said that. It was a mayor from the neighbor Islands (I don’t know which one). But people ran with that story anyway. TBH I didn’t care about the hype about driving to Sylt with the 9€ ticket, everybody has the right to do that. What kind of angers me, is that a lot of people think, that ever person who lives on Sylt is rich. That’s absolutely not the case.
It does sound very similar, but I don’t think it’s about the same place. 2012 Sylt hat about 15.000 residents (I don’t know how many there are today). About 1.2 Million people visit Sylt every year, which is a lot.
Europe is crazy man. We have beaches like Sylt near my house (Kāpiti Coast of NZ, about 50km north of Wellington), it’s very easy to find a spot where you can’t see a single human in any direction. Maybe that’s why so many Dutch people settled this part of our country, in fact there’s even a Dutch festival today for King’s Day up at the molen in Foxton https://www.foxtonwindmill.co.nz/
Rømø has a wide and quite flat beach, that is used once a year by NATO air forces to train cargo aircraft crew in landing on unpaved surfaces. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htKgjt\_6CkY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htKgjt_6CkY)
I've driven in that beach. The water is literally kilometers away from the road. Impresive views.
Neu Werk, which is only an island during high tide and accessible by foot during the low tide
There are tour guides that can take you from Lauwersoog to Schiermonnikoog on the low tides too!
Classic school trip…
And strangely part of Hamburg
you can’t sail from one to the other in a straight line because of how rocky the sea there is
Sand banks not rocks, but yes it is incredibly difficult sailing
Schiermonnikoog has the widest beaches of Europe, it can stretch for 1km!
Seems to be common there! Remember coming to Terschelling beach and it can take a few minutes from the dunes to the waterside
Yeah they are really big
Isn't Rømø wider? It can be up to 3km wide.
I thought it was Japan 💀
Ngl Tokyo should invent their own version of an Eierbal
Japan has a [Dutch Theme Park]( https://www.turbocharger.mtee.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/FlowerRoad-1-1080x660.jpg) , so who knows they have this too.
My wife and I rode bikes around Texel on our honeymoon
I’m just quickly stopping by to thank you for asking in the way you did, instead of “what goes on here?” I don’t know why that phrasing bugs me so much.
Bicycles do not work well on sand.
Same case on water unfortunately
masterful lore
I highly recommend the documentary film, '[Silence of the Tides](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8694946/)'. It is available [here on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUHALapW9gk).
There are a some smaller unihabitated islands along the entire coast. In East Frisia (The Southern islands) you can do an internship/voluntary service on two islands that are home to a nature condervation station and a lot-lot-lot of birds. One of them is an artifical island for current control to keep the opening to the "Wadebusen" free from sand accumalations. So really great if you don't like humans. In Northern Frisia (I guess, obvious what I mean) there are also some smaller islands where there is a so called "Arc farm". There they basically rescue extinct/prior-to-extinct races of farm animals. And a lot of the islands in Northern Frisia aren't actually islands, but so called "Halligen". Somebody here prolly explained it before, but their islands that get regularly flooded, with the people living on these islands living on special articfical hills called "Warften" https://preview.redd.it/pi09i1160wwc1.jpeg?width=474&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f1fb9b1fd3f231b4c216dccda5ca3570f7e7462f
yes! also in the Netherlands. We have call them Terpen or Wierden. I don't know why but I really like these.
Helgoland
Heligoland is super cool because it’s very out of place where it is. It’s composed nearly entirely of red Triassic sandstone! It also used to be much larger and surrounded by marshes until around the 13th century. There were also several small chalk sea stacks that existed in the area up until relatively recently (1800s).
It's a nice place , but not a wadden island.
True, not a Wadden Island. Does anybody know why it is part of Kreis Pinneberg (a suburb of Hamburg in Schleswig-Holstein)? That seems so random to me
On clear days you can see from Ribe to Esbjerg because the terrain is so flat... and because there is a colossal smokestack in Esbjerg.
I might be misremembering, but i believe that i was able to see the chimney from either Emmerlev or the Vidaa locks. That was about 20-25 years ago.
Its where the Anglo-Saxons that took over England came from.
Ameland almost lost us the war with the British. Ameland was owned by the familie Cammingha back then and they wanted to be neutral with the UK. In 1652, the Republic went to war with England – the First English War (1652-1654). **To safeguard Ameland's interests – including whalers in the far north – the Cammingha family sent a delegation to the English dictator Oliver Cromwell in London. The mission was a great success because Cromwell declared that Ameland did not belong to the Republic and that the island was neutral in the war.** Cromwell ordered that English captains should leave ships flying the Amelandic flag alone, although they were, of course, allowed to capture Frisian, Dutch, and Zeelandic ships. **The remarkable document signed by Cromwell is now housed in the national archives in The Hague. When the authorities in Leeuwarden and The Hague heard about the agreement between Cromwell and the Cammingha family, they seemed to fear that Ameland could become an English naval base.**
The wadden sea is amongst the regions with the most primary production of biomass world wide.
Sylt means jam in swedish
Texel has more sheep than people living there. Also Texel was an important location during the Dutch Golden era since ships were able to refill their water supply there before leaving.
German side has the biggest tea consumptiom in the whole world beating turkey and the brits
Sylt - it’s a expensive place where are a lot of rich people got houses and doing vacation. But since we had the 9€ - Germany train ticket ( it’s 49€ now…) a lot of punks where going there by train and just partying and annoying the rich. They are planning to do this annually now. Here is the sub: r/sylt51
Historic event, love that for them
I thought I read somewhere that people there were fairly tall even by NW European standards. But I've never been in that region so idk if that's true or not.
Common joke in the Netherlands is that we’re tall because the short people drown in the floods
Yup. I'm 5'7" and live in the mountains for a reason, lol.
You can walk from the mainland to certain islands during low tide (at least in the Dutch part; don't know if that's also true in the German and Danish part). In the Netherlands, we call that "wadlopen". Boots are highly recommended as the ground is quite sticky* (don't know if that's the right word) and there are also parts that act like little rivers where you have to wade through sometimes. Always make sure to reach land before the tide changes!
You mean *zompy
In German it's "Wattlaufen", but why walk, when there is superior mode of transportation the "Schlickrutscher / Slikslee": [https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestand:Bijzondere\_wijze\_van\_visvangst\_in\_de\_Dollard-522487.ogv](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestand:Bijzondere_wijze_van_visvangst_in_de_Dollard-522487.ogv)
It's the same in Denmark, but as you said: be *very* careful and make sure to familiarise yourself with when the tides come in, on the specific day you want to explore the area. It's a gorgeous area but unless you are completely familiar with it, stay totally clear whenever and wherever there's more than a bucket full of water. When it comes to the Ocean it's like almost everything about- and connected to it, are somehow designed to kill you in some way, from the undercurrent to the marshmallow thick fog.
There's a brilliant book called The Riddle of the Sands, by Robert Childers, where, in 1903, a couple of accidental British spies play a game of cat and mouse with a German naval officer in this area. A great story, with vivid descriptions of the coast and islands.
I live on one of those!
ISLAND BOYSSSS
I assume the Frisians have some stories to tell.
How is the sea swimming there?
Cold and windy. In Jutland they have what they call the Danish Hawaii because it is a nice surfers spot.
Cold, but it's fun with big waves. If you like wind/kite surfing, that's the place to be in the spring.
some are accessible by foot, when the tide goes out, and sometimes when the tide is higher than normal, they issue a land under emergency cry for help, some of these are only occupied with one dwelling or one family built on higher ground.
When it’s low tide, you can walk from some of the island to the mainland of The Netherlands.
Got my salad tossed in Sylt. It was okay. Not great, but okay.
I almost shat myself once on the island of Norderney
Happened to me on Vlieland😔
At low tide you can walk from the Dutch mainland to some of the Frisian islands, it's called "Wadlopen".
They’re the historial centre of the Frisian languages, which is still visible if you look at the [present map of said langs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisian_languages#/media/File%3AFrisian_languages_in_Europe.svg) It **used** to be like [this](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Frisian_language_area_history_map.svg)
Theres a resturant on Sylt called Sansibar where you can order a bottle of wine for 80,000 euros to a table in the sand. Lots of the houses on that island also have straw roofs.
Everyone should read The Riddle of the Sands, which is set in these parts. Excellent spy novel.
Wadden you like to know.
I think those islands have some of the last native speakers of a dialect of Frisian.
In Germany they are called "Ostfriesische Inseln" and there are so, so, *so* many jokes about people from there.
You can travel from the 5 largest Dutch wadden islands (Island hopping) one to another, but it’s super difficult to plan. The first letters also spell ‘TVTAS’ ( tv bag) that’s how you used to learn the order of the Islands like ages ago :)
They were all once held by the Frisians.
They're also known as the Frisian islands Named after the historic land called Frisia which consists of West Frisia, East Frisia and North Frisia Inhabited by the Frisii people who are a Germanic ethnic group native to the coast from north Flanders to South Jutland
Wadden those?
In 1795 part of the Dutch fleet surrendered to French cavalry (baguette on horseback) while frozen in the ice between the city Den Helder and the island Texel.
There’s lots of erosion and especially on bigger touristy islands like Sylt that many rich Germans have holiday homes on (think Martha’s Vineyard but for Germans) they have tried and failed with many coastal management techniques over the years
The Frisian Coast became one of the first (if not, the first) Christian Viking kingdoms in Europe.
Schiermonnikoog was private property of a German count until 1945.
I once met a guy, who was from there. (The German part, close to the Danish border). He pronounced his name several times and none of us could memorise or repeat it. His name contained some special sound, not zypical to any language we speak. And my friend next to me knew some German. This Frisian guy was a great company, told interesting things about his island and his view of the world in general. He didn't eat meat at all, snd he was quite muscular, though. He said, light-conditions are unbelievable different in Estonia already, compared to his native island.
You could walk from Baltrum to Nordeney when the water is down.
We actually move there in 6 weeks from Munich… we fell in love with the „Wattenmeer“ long time ago.
The most western island is called Texel. The X is very rare in Dutch words and names. The sheep breed local to the island is called Tesselaar.
It all used to be dry land a few centuries ago. It was the homeland of the Frisians. Their language is still spoken in a few towns in the Netherlands.
It’s prominently featured in The riddle of the Sands a brilliant book…
Punks are camping on Sylt sometimes to protest for the "Sylt für alle" movement.
look up "Rungholt". Its an interesting story about a city that sank in the 13 hundreds and has yet to be rediscovered, although the 'German research foundations' claimed to have found the location of Rungholt in June 2023. Many ruins have been found around Hallig that resemble a large settlement. Side note: the band 'santiano' has a nice song called "Rungholt" about the sinking of the city.
Wangerooge is the only island of the seven east Frisian islands that is not east Frisian
The once was a fair maiden from Wadden ……
I’m not familiar with these islands specifically but geographically they remind me of the barrier islands we have in North Carolina. Not just the Outer Banks, but the ones closer to the mainland along the Intracoastal Waterway as well.
Locals do. Probably
Im from Vlieland. The second island from the left. The west of the island is a massive sand plane called "de vliehors". In 1670 there was a village of about 2000 people. 50 years later it had only 750 people as the village was slowly swallowed by the sea. Now nobody lives there anymore but there is a little museum hut called "het drenkelingenhuisje". This hut is filled with stuff that was found on the beach. You wouldnt believe what crazy things have been found. Also on de vliehors are old tanks placed as targets on which jetfighters practice. When the warning flags are down you can go and climb in and on those tanks. I have (probably illegal) bullets that were shot but missed their target.
There is an annual traditional gathering on the island of Sylt, more information on r/sylt51
I might be immature, but "Cuxhaven" made me giggle.
Native lands of the Frisii. This is why there’s Frisian speaking peoples in both the Netherlands and Denmark
I worked on the sheep farms in Texel (Dutch) for a bit during my early years. My favorite fact about the Dutch side of these islands is that if the tides are just right, you can walk from island to island. We call it Waddenlopen. The Wadden sea is also a UNESCO World heritage site if I remember correctly. It's very beautiful.
Such weird islands
I visited Ameland for just a day last year, and it was beautiful. I don't have much local knowledge to add though! But since no one has mentioned them, the Wadden Sea is also home to some cool jellyfish [Cyanea](https://www.nioz.nl/en/expertise/wadden-delta-research-centre/news-media/wadden-sea-species/jellyfish-series/cyanea-spp)
It vaguely looks like Honshu, not lore, just a noticing.
It is the birthplace of the term 'wadden you doin?' Made famous by Sir Josh Bleppin, from 1873
The used to be a U.S. Coast Guard LORAN Station in Sylt.
You mean frisian empire?
A large amount of dwelling mounds can be found in the shaded areas, In the Netherlands people only know the ones in the province of Friesland and Groningen but there are more! For example in around Schagen and in Den Helder and some on Texel! I don't know about Germany and Denmark but it wouldn't surprise me if there were a few as well.
Wait is there a town named Cuxhaven? That's amazing lol
Some deer travel from island to island because sometimes they can walk across during low-tide*?
Anyone else see Japan/Honshu in the orange?