Vlissingen

We were up at 4am in order to catch an earlier ferry and make good use of our pre-cycling day. We gained a couple of hours and headed for Vlissingen which had been recommended by Diane, Kim’s mum.

We hadn’t bargained on a 2.5 hour journey from Dunkirk, so were tired and hungry and stopped at the first cafe we saw. It served the University of Applied Sciences Campus and looked very spartan

We ordered a cheese sandwich and it was absolutely amazing. We ate too quickly to take photos but it was a foot long baguette, stuffed full of cheese, egg and salad. Thank goodness we’d decided to share.

Fortified, we headed into Vlissingen where, in true Dutch style, it cost a fortune to park the Beetle for a couple of hours. We walked through the town past the cheese and spice shops to watch the container ships as they passed along Flushing Roads.

A walk along the front took us past the Tidal Clock on the Dutch Pilots Organisation. This clock cleverly indicates the flow of tides at Flushing roads, the channel used to access the port at Antwerp. There is an information board with a detailed description, in English, of how the clock works. Frowning, we read it several times and were none the wiser.

The drive to our hotel at Burgh Haamstede took us over delta works dams which we’ll be cycling across when we return here on Monday. Hmm, they are long and very blustery. The weather’s not looking great either!

Our hotel is nestled amongst the dunes, at the end of a gliding runway. It’s very dated but the room is huge and the car park full of SUV’s with equally large cycle racks