77 Introduction to Vlissingen

Nowadays Vlissingen can be reached easily by train. But till the sixties of the last century Vlissingen was on an island: Walcheren. After the devastating effects of the Flood Disaster of 1953 the islands that made up the Province of Zeeland were connected to each other and the mainland by dykes, bridges and flood defences. Walcheren is no longer an island and if you didn’t know you would never notice it had been. The train ride took just over three hours. Because of recent rescheduling it took half an hour longer than during the time I visited the town for work. I had always enjoyed visiting the province. Work for the National Bureau of Water Management had taken me many times to Zeeland. In 2001 while recovering from cancer treatment I had been kindly taken in by a couple living on Walcheren. In the nineties my aunt Taat had taken Bert and me for a Whitsun holiday to Vlissingen. We had stayed in the Grand Hotel Brittannia or ‘De Brit’. All rooms in the hotel had balconies looking out over the Roadstead of Vlissingen. That view I wanted to have this time too. But ‘De Brit’ had been demolished. Fortunately there are more hotels on the ‘Boulevard’. I chose the Hotel Truida and was given a room with the desired view. Better still: when I sat on the loo I could draw this sketch. Martina, a Dutch friend from Achill Island has a ‘pied d’à terre’ in Vlissingen. She welcomed me and gave me a thorough introduction to the town. She took me and her dog for a circular tour around the old city. Starting on Wall Street she took me to the Saint Jacob’s or Great Church and on to the yacht harbour and the Lampsins House, past the Pilot’s port and Bellamypark or the old dock harbour to the statue of Michiel de Ruyter and to the harbour inlet and on to the Prisoners’ Tower and the boulevards. Turned out her home was just behind the hotel in the 19th century part of the town. In the evening we watched the movie ‘Admiral’ on Netflix. I couldn’t have gotten a better introduction to Vlissinge the town of Michiel de Ruyter.