The Wadden-island Schiermonnikoog is named after the monks (monnik), dressed in gray (in Gronings: schier) clothes. And to make it complete: "oog" is Gronings for island. And because the name is so long, a lot of people just say "Schier".

"Schier" is the smallest (inhabited) island of the Dutch Wadden-islands, but it is the only one with two ‘real’ lighthouses. One of them (the gray tower) is no longer used as a lighthouse, but it is still handy for TV-, radio- and GSM-antennaes.

There is one village, with a lot of authentic (looking) houses. Lots of them have years on the wall, 1721 is the oldest house. The houses are built perpendicular to the main wind direction, so the influence of the wind is minimized.

The beacon in the dunes marks the most eastern point of the island where you can get by bicycle. By foot, you can go several kilometers further east before reaching the sea.

The beach of Schier is supposed to have the biggest width of Europe. But who wants to walk far to the sea?

We arrived on foot, now we are leaving by boat. As the tickets are sold on the mainland in return fares only, there is no ticket control on the island. Happily for us, because we didn’t have any.

Though the island is almost free of cars (there are lots of taxis and buses, and some of the inhabitants have a car), we managed to take a picture of the ferry with the only car which left at the same time as we did.

To return to Groningen: click here