Zierikzee

 It was a girls’ day out for me today as Hesther and her friend Ineke took me to Zierikzee which is on another island here in Zeeland.  This city was a big trading point for madder, the dye that makes red and was devastated in the flood of 1953. 

  It was market day and we got to do some shopping, go into the church where they were having an exhibition of student art work that was very good, and went to the Stadhuis museum.  We stopped for pastries at a café at the end of the canal that had the hugest, 

 yummiest pudding filled pastry cake thing that I can’t even describe and I couldn’t finish a third of the piece, and that’s with Hesther helping with a couple of bites.  I was able to find some more souvenirs that are different from things that I’ve seen anywhere else before we left the town.   The bridges and port gates leading in and out of town were 

still in great condition and we found a little orchard that was selling the biggest, plumpest, sweetest cherries that I’ve ever had.  I know that Michigan is famous for its cherries, but they’re going

  to have to start producing some of these to stay there.  Sad part, I don’t even know what kind of cherries they are.  We went out toward the Oosterscheldt to see the delta works that make up living

  on these islands by holding the sea at bay and connecting the islands with roads.  We stopped at Kouderkerk where there was a village that was drowned by the waters and the only thing that 

 remains is a tower in the middle of nowhere.  You can climb the tower and hear the story of how a fisherman cursed the village to be flooded and look out over the water, but we didn’t see any seals 

because it was high tide.  We tried to see seals, to the point of using the zoom lens to their maximum and probably taking pictures of driftwood or bushes on a sand bar in the distance, but I think that’s all we got.