ALL ABOUT THAT SOUVENIR • The Elfstedentocht [Eleven Cities Tour] is a long-distance skating race in which competitors skate almost 200 kilometres in a single day along frozen canals linking eleven Frisian cities, starting and finishing in the provincial capital, Leeuwarden. The most recent Elfstedentocht was held in 1997; the climactic conditions over the past three decades—hello, global heating!—make the prospect of future Elfstedentochten unlikely.
However, an annual cycling race now traces the route of the Elfstedentocht, as do races for rowers, walkers, runners, stand-up paddle board and scooter riders, and wheelchair occupants. In 2025, conditions were so severe that several such events had to be called off, for fear that participants might be blown into the canals. One brave triathlete completed the Elfstedentocht three times in a row (i.e. cycling, running and swimming), a high-risk undertaking given the run-off from the neighbouring farms.
For those of a more leisurely disposition, the Elfstedenfietstocht [Eleven Cities Cycling Tour] offers an opportunity to take a self-guided trundle through the landscapes of Fryslân and discover the charms of the eponymous eleven cities, as well as the myriad dorpen [villages], terpen [raised mounds], kerken [churches], watergebieden [wetlands], vogels [birds] and hydrologically themed places of interest.
The ‘official’ Elfstedenfietstocht route is two-hundred-and-fifty kilometres long. It traces a similar path to the skating race, with the obvious caveat that cycle paths do not always follow canals. This means that, in several places, the cycling route makes long detours and focuses less on skating-related sights of interest. However, both routes pass close by our village, and are extremely easy to access.
Still, I only recently managed to complete the first of my own private Frisian cycle routes, which I call the Daveyselfdorpenfietstochten [Davey’s Eleven Village Cycling Tours; patent pending]. My aim this spring is to complete the remainder of the Elfstedentocht route over four non-consecutive days. I also plan to collect stamps for all eleven Frisian ‘cities’ on the official Elfstedenfietstochtkaart, thus qualifying for a souvenir.
As you may have guessed, for a completist like me, it’s all about that souvenir.
And maps.
Daveyselfdorpenfietstocht
Stage 1
Date: Friday 20 March 2026
Time: 09:30-16:30
Distance: 62 kilometres
Route: Wânswert > Hallum > Marrum > Ferwert > Heigebeintum > Blije > Holwert > Hantum > Hantumhuizen > Hantumeruitburen > Aalsum > Dokkum > Burdaard > Wânswert
STEDEN EN DORPEN • And the stats, of course. Can’t forget them. The first stage of the Daveyselfdorpenfietstocht comprises approximately 62 kilometres of cycling, with an average elevation of just two metres. Leuk, hé? Like the Elfstedenfietstocht, it follows a much longer and well-travelled international cycling path: the EuroVelo 12 North Sea Cycle Route. The Dutch section is also known as a langeafstandsfietsroute [LF: long-distance cycling route] or just the Kustroute [Coastal Route].
This first stage didn’t feel like much of a city tour at all. However, I passed through eleven dorpen which, in medieval times, probably felt like cities, given there wasn’t much else around. Many such dorpen feature kerken built on terpen. If the general rule in populated areas of the Netherlands is that you’re probably below sea level, this part of Fryslân is mostly at or above sea level. Which means that some terpenkerken tower over the landscape—relatively speaking, of course.
Hence, what follows is an overview of the first stage of the Daveyselfdorpenfietstocht [Davey’s Eleven Village Cycle Tour; patent pending], in which I explore the back roads around our little village of Wânswert; the old railway route that used to run between Leeuwarden and Anjum; the Waddenzee UNESCO World Heritage Area; eleven small villages and their monumental churches; and the capital of Noardeast-Fryslân, Dokkum.
For the shorter version, get thee to my Substack post post-post-haste.
LEAVING WÂNSWERT • Wânswert is unique for several reasons, the most fascinating of which is that it may have been named after the Nordic god Odin. Now, I don’t have time to go into the complex Viking history of Fryslân (traces of which show up in the language: for example, the word for a child, bern, is essentially the same as the Swedish barn). But Odin in West Frisian is Wodan, which may have been shortened to Wân, giving Wân + s [his] + wert [terp]: Odin’s church-mound village.
While this provenance is uncertain, the terp in Wânswert dates from the Roman Iron Age (around the 4th century common era), while the Petruskerk [St Peter’s church] dates from 1335. This seems incredibly old to me but it’s hardly unusual: in fact, the church is just one of a string of medieval churches in this part of Fryslân, all of which have a distinctive design that helps you locate yourself as you ride around the absolutely flat and mostly treeless landscape.
Leaving Wânswert, one joins an obscure cycling route, the Bartlehiemerfietstocht, which passes by the Petruskerk, along a narrow path through field where sheep and cows graze, skirts the poldermolen [windmill] Viktor, and then traces a narrow back road towards the Iedyk and Bartlehiem, the closest point where the Elfstedentocht skaters race. Bartlehiem is famous for its wooden bridge, undeneath which the skaters pass on their way to Dokkum.
But the first stage of my Daveyselfdorpenfietstocht doesn’t pass through Bartlehiem. Instead, I turned off the Iedyk onto the Trekweg that runs beside the Hallumer Feart—an old path along which horses and people used to trudge, pulling boats loaded with goods up and down the canal linking the village of Hallum to the Dokkumer Ee: the main canal between Dokkum and Leeuwarden, which the skaters must navigate twice (there and back again).
BEING AN IDIOT • Being a completist—and an idiot—I detoured to Hallum so that I could join the north-east segment of the Elfstedenfietsroute, which travels roughly east-west from Harlingen to Dokkum, albeit with many twists and turns in between. Once I arrived in Hallum, I turned my mighty Trek 570 into the wind, and remained in this increasingly annoying configuration for the next four hours. I won’t describe the ‘sights’ of Hallum, Marrum and Ferwert, expect to note that these villages all have supermarkets. There’s also a pool at Hallum.
Departing Ferwert, which is also home to a snack bar whose patat [hot chip] servings are generous, I finally came to a part of the Elfstedenfietsroute I’d never ridden on before: the short stretch of road to Hegebeintum, which bears the honour of being the highest terp in all of the Netherlands (and Germany). In fact, the ground on which the kerk in Hegebeintum stands is 8.80 metres above what the Dutch refer to as het Normaal Amsterdams Peil [Amsterdam ordnance datum: essentially, ground level], which is massively high.
It’s also an incredibly beautiful spot, with a lovely cobblestoned path leading up to the church and its graveyard. The terp is even more remarkable for the fact that it has been occupied since 600 BCE. Our kids go on school excurions here once a year, and I was hoping that the visitor’s centre might be open so that I could grab a copy of a book cataloguing the churches in the area (and, perhaps, a sneaky bakkie met een koekje daarbij), but it was closed, so I decided to plough on, into the wind, and the Waddengebied.
From Hegebeintum, the route winds (LOL) its way to Blije, crossing a walking path which used to be a train track forming part of the Noord-Friesche Locaalspoorweg line between Leeuwarden and Anjum (near the Lauwersmeer). The section of track that passes by Blije operated between 1901 and 1975, and a number of old stations have since been restored. For instance, the station in Marrum now houses a Pannekoektrein [pancake train], where you can eat overpriced pancakes in freezing or boiling carriages—depending on the time of year.
OP DE ZEEDIJK • I spent the first two hours of my journey cycling through places I’d already visited. It wasn’t until I departed the tiny village of Blije that I truly left civilisation behind, heading straight for what is simply known as de Zeedijk [sea dike]: a massive earthern construction that protects the northern coastline of Fryslân from the Waddenzee [literally, mudflat-sea].
At nine metres tall, the Zeedijk is only slightly higher than the terp in Heigebeintum (which is actually the highest in the country) but constitutes an engineering feat of an entirely different order, stretching for scores of kilometres along the coast. The Elfstedenfietstocht route actually takes you over the top of the Zeedijk and into the zone known in Frisian as the Bûtendyks [beyond the dijk].
When I climbed the Zeedijk’s lush grassy slopes, I expected to find the waters of the Waddenzee lapping at its base on the other side. But the Bûtendyks is still pretty much dry land, albeit land that is muddy and no longer used for farming. It’s also a breeding ground for the myriad species of birds that migrate here, and which form the justification for UNESCO’s designation of the Wad as a World Heritage Area.
I’d been keen to check out a cultural monument in the Bûtendyks, the Terp fan de Takomst [Mound of the Future], a public space artwork embedded in the mudflats (a bit like the German and Allied pilots whose bodies also remain buried in the dike), but as breeding season had begun, the terp was closed. I swung my chariot in the direction of Holwerd, where I found a kibbeling stand and ate fried fish to pep myself up.
AALSUM • I was glad that I scoffed that kibbeling, because the next few hours were tough, wind-wise. I was cycling straight into a strengthening gale along a part of the route that held absolutely no interest at all: just treeless farm lands, interspersed with medieval church villages with similar names (namely: Hantum, Hantumhuizen and Hantumeruitburen), and there was not a single shop or sheltered place to sit down, although I did find a bench and defiantly sat on it.
Not for the first time, I cursed the completist aspect of my personality, which compelled me to push myself onwards along the exact route, despite the possibility of cutting across country on perfectly reasonable bike paths with a tail wind. This absurd stubbornness meant that I was absolutely stuffed by the time I finally swung south-west and headed, relieved, in the general direction of Dokkum, the only actual member of the Elfsteden on the day’s route.
Having passed through ten terp villages already, I had become something of an expert in their aesthetics.
Eventually, however, I found the tiny hamlet of Aalsum. While there’s not much in Aalsum, what is there more than made up for the monotony of the hours preceding it. Cycling past beautiful old manor houses, I noticed a sunken field, surrounded by groves of trees and a moat, and in its centre another terp, with a picture-postcard church planted on top of it.
Having passed through ten terp villages already, I had become something of an expert in their aesthetics. But I was pleased to discover that the Sint-Catharinakerk in Aalsum is just as gorgeous as the kerk in Hegebeintum, with a beautiful monumental path leading up to it, and a tranquil position overlooking the polders. I sat on a stout wooden bench outside its locked front door and ate my last Nutella wrap, appreciative at last of my completist self, before heading into the imperial city: Dokkum.
INK STAMPS • Dokkum is pretty small as far as cities go but it’s got a star-shaped defensive wall around it, two windmills, an old town centre that’s heavy on charm, and a couple of sailing ships docked at the quay in its modest entertainment precinct. Its role in the Elfstedentocht is as a turnaround point: having skated for about ten kilometres on the Dokkumer Ee from Bartlehiem, entrants must perform a 180-degree turn at the Keerpunt and head back to Leeuwarden.
This year, on King’s Day, the Dutch monarch Willem-Alexander (who partook in one of the last Elfstedentochten in 1986 under a psuedonym, W.A. van Buren) will visit Dokkum, and the gemeente [council] has gone apeshit in its efforts to tidy things up. There are intersections in the city centre that have had more infrastructure investment in recent months than Wanswert received in the past three decades. But everyone loves a royal story, no? Well, everyone except me, it seems.
My only task in Dokkum was to visit the Tourist Information Centre and get my Elfstedenfietstochtkaart stamped. But the lady behind the counter informed me that she’d run out of ink. Fear not, she added, they had another ink pad upstairs. I pretended to laugh, while also imagining how my completist side might have reacted had the ink stamp gone missing or, even worse, if the place had been closed.
While I waited for her to return, I looked at the brochures, books and maps. Once I’d collected the all-important stamp, I bought an anthology of Frisian poetry in Dutch, Fryslân: Poëtische palet (Stichting Achterland, 2012) for the princely sum of one Euro. We chatted for a few moments, and I realised I’d barely spoken to another person all day, apart from the kibbeling guy and the occasional cyclist or pedestrian yelling hoi [hi] or moarn [good morning] as they passed.
But in the end there was just one thing left to do: get back on the bike and silently cycle the ten kilometres that stood between me and a well-deserved hot shower. I managed to pedal into Wânswert, wobbly but upright, at 16:30. Having set off at 09:30, it had been a long, slow day. Were I in any sort of condition, I might have completed this stage in around four hours, but then I probably wouldn’t have discovered the Zeedijk, or Aalsum, or the little book of poems.
“KAMER DOOR DE NACHT” • The next day, out of curiosity, I opened Fryslân: Poëtische palet at a random page, landing on a poem entitled ‘Afsluitdijk’, by M. Vasalis (1909-98). Flip van Doorn, in his 2021 book De Friezen [The Frisians], mentions arriving in Leeuwarden on a train bearing Vasalis’ name, and also writes about this very same poem.
While this anthology has received some scathing criticism [in Dutch], I find it an interesting curio, and consider it more than a coincidence that it contains ‘Aflsuitdijk’. The poem features a bus that rides als een kamer door de nacht [like a room through the night] across another great piece of Dutch engineering: the 32-kilometre-long Afsluitdijk connecting Fryslân and Noord Holland.
I love this idea of a room through the night, and wonder if my cycling journey might constitute a kind of room through the day, albeit one moving at a much slower pace, and in a kind of greyscale that my photo-retouching efforts can’t quite remove.
It seems fitting to end with the poem’s final lines:
Er is geen einde en geen begin
aan deze tocht, geen toekomst, geen verleden,
alleen dit wonderlijk gespleten lange heden.[There is no end and no beginning
to this tour, no future, no past,
just this wonderfully riven long present]M. Vasalis, ‘Afsluitdijk’ (1940)
Until we meet again, then, in another wonderfully riven day-room.