June 29th, 2010

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Tuesday June 29th Sneek to Stavoren

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

The long awaited summer weather and the Dutch world cup soccer team are on a roll.

In a short while I’ll be continuing my Friesland tour from Sneek, through IJlst, across the Fluessen to the old Zuider Zee port of Stavoren. I watched the Dutch defeat Slovakia yesterday afternoon at the home of my cousin Siebold. Just around the corner from their home is the Friesland Maritime Museum (Friesche Scheepvaart Museum). I spent a few hours there. It contains a couple of collections that I had always wanted to see. One of them is the complete interior of the living room of a well to do farmer-merchant family in the town of Ypecolsga, which is just 5 miles from Sneek. This farm home still exists and I show below a picture of a family reunion in August 1993 at this farm house. This is also one of the last pictures of our mother. The lady seated far right. She died at the age of 92 in December that year. I am standing in the back next to my twin brother Jan (Jan with tie). This farm has stayed in de Vries family continuously since the early 19th century. The interior dates back to that period and was gifted by the family to the museum at the time of a renovation of the farm house. The Tromp family branch in Ypecolsga operated a fleet of Kofschip ships and owned a shipyard in the town, of which you will see a painting in the below pictures. The museum has some of the best displays of models, paintings, rigging, tools, etc. of the Golden Age of Friesland’s maritime past. It also inventories a wealth of old records. My cousin Carol de Vries has donated an extensive record of nearly a 100 year old documents and correspondence kept of the de Vries mastmaker’s business, which started in Ypecolsga-Woudsend in 1802.

The Water Poort (Water Gate) is famous for the Elf Stedentocht (11 cities tour) a 200 k.m. long ice skating event that goes through all 11 Frisian Cities.