German-Dutch on the Dollard Route

International Dollard Route – that sounds like a sport. And sometimes it is. Especially when the wind is blowing from the front. An e-bike is then a blessing. Otherwise, the landscape to the left and right of the Dollart – this large bay at the mouth of the Ems – is so flat and clear that the sweat actually only runs when it is very hot.

Concerning the different spelling: Germans write the Dollart with a “t” at the end, the Dutch with a “d”. The number of vertical meters to be overcome on the route is very manageable, often you even cycle below sea level, but luckily you don’t notice it: thanks to the dikes.

Let’s go in East Friesland

A good starting point for a tour around the Dollart is the town of Leer. A place that you are very reluctant to leave, because the old town is one of the most beautiful in East Frisia. The Jann Berghaus Bridge, one of the largest bascule bridges in Europe, marks the border between Leer and Rheiderland.

The water of the Ems flows impressively fast towards the North Sea. But the view of the river only lasts for a short time, because the route leads on a wide cycle path along the land side of the dike, past small mounds called Bingum, Jemgum, Midlum, Critzum and Hatzum.

Wind-bent houses crowd around modest church buildings. Red brick dominates here, once fired with peat. The chimneys of a former brick factory tower over the dike in Midlum.

Ferry crossing with coffee

In the port of Ditzum, where several shrimp boats are still moored, you should have a bite to eat, because the ferry crossing to Delfzijl takes a good two hours. And on the “Dollard” there is no bockwurst to buy.

After all, deckhand Erich vom Hagen made coffee. Eighty people can ride, says Captain Ralf Hannecken, seven get on board. On Wednesdays, more people usually come along, that’s when there’s a market in Delfzijl, “it’s popular”.

From May to September, the ferry commutes several times a week, with a stopover in Emden’s outer harbor, often in the shadow of huge car transporters. What is special about the Dollart: “We are in the area of ​​brackish water, here the fresh water of the Ems mixes with the salt water of the North Sea.”

Origin of Commissioner Maigret

Dutch Delfzijl is unmistakably a seaport city. In 1929 the Belgian writer Georges Simenon arrived here with his boat that needed repairs. Simenon whiled away the time in a café, drank a few Genever and devised a character named Maigret, who later became the focus of a number of novels as a detective inspector.

Architecture fans can study some fine examples of the Amsterdam School in Delfzijl. The architectural style is often described as “brick expressionism”. The Tourist Office has issued a small map that leads to houses with ornate facades, ladder windows and rounded roofs.

There are a handful of places along the bike route that offer a good view of the Dollart or Dollard. The former natural gas drilling platform Dyksterhusen near Ditzum is one of them, with a narrow strip of greenery and a stairway into the water – at high tide.

Or the “Kiekkaaste” directly on the German-Dutch border near Bad Nieuweschans. Here a narrow boardwalk leads through waving reeds to the observation tower at the edge of the Wadden Sea.

Bay was once much larger

Finally, Termunten, a small town with a Sielhafen, which is one of the most beautiful along the route, is almost a must if you want to know a little more about the bay. It was created during major storm surges, whole villages disappeared, it should have been thirty, says Roelf de Vries, the head of the visitor center.

“The Dollart was three times as big,” he says, almost as far as Emsland. Then, over the past five centuries, people have wrested more and more land from the sea, polder by polder. The Breebaartpolder was the last to be drained in 1979.

Today the sea bay is around one hundred square kilometers in size. A hiking trail leads from the visitor center through the Breebaartpolder. Thanks to controlled flooding, a paradise for birds has emerged here. From May to September, dozens of seals cavort along the outer dyke.

Dutch Grain Republic

From Termunten the path leads inland, sometimes on country roads with little traffic, sometimes on a narrow “Fietspad” on the canal. Between Winschoten and the “Blue City”, a new residential area on an inland sea, you cross the Pieter Smit Bridge – at 800 meters it is the longest bicycle bridge in Europe.

The polder soils in this corner of the Netherlands were very fertile, which is why the area around the municipality of Oldambt is also called the “Grain Republic”. It is striking that many farmhouses are either very large or very small.

The large ones are representative buildings, with stucco windows, a lake in front of the door and a moat around it – the “polder princes” who owned the land resided here. Although the small ones are of a similar shape, they offered little more than four walls for the farm workers’ families.

Last piece in zigzag

For the last stage, a zigzag course between Bunde and Weener, it is advisable to take provisions with you. Not everywhere there are nice rest stops like in Nieuwolda, where you can sit under an awning in the “Eetcafé de Brug” and watch the hustle and bustle on the canal.

But then, at the end of the port of Weener, when you no longer expect it, the location “Hafen 55” appears. When a nice person hands you an ice cream sundae, the only thing missing is a free seat in a beach chair or in one of the two hammocks.

International Dollart Route

(dpa)

More articles from this category can be found here: Travel