Paul and Peg's Travels: River Cruise 2015 May 3

At 8:30 a.m., we boarded the buses in Vlissingen for a drive through the countryside to Westkapelle, then on to Middleburg, where we rejoined the Da Vinci.

We saw a little of Vlissingen from the bus windows - such as this beautiful old tower.

And this view of the beach below the dykes, with cannons pointing out to sea.

And of course the windmill - I can never resist the windmills!

I believe this was the tower on a Protestant church, judging by the rooster on the top. Lots of bells in the carillon!

Some of the fields still have the German bunkers in them.

One of our destinations in Westkapelle was this former church. You can see that there is a light on top, as in Lighthouse, which apparently often happened with churches near the sea. Our real destination at this church was to visit the cemetery behind it. The Canadians decided to breach the dyke in this town in order to drive out the Germans - the final drive to clear the Scheldt and free the dutch people. Before they did that, they dropped fliers from planes explaining what they would do, and telling people to leave for safe places, but apparently some people never got the message, and many people were drowned. This is the cemetery for those people.

Again, Jeremy laid a beautiful arrangement at the cenetaph.

This is just a small sample of the grave markers in a large semi-circle around the back of the church for the civilians who died in this tragic event. Whole families are buried here - from the very young to the very old.

You can see the area behind the white fence where the dyke was breached.

This is one of the landing boats that soldiers would have been put ashore in during a "landing".

At first I thought that maybe the tanks would be landed in these boats, but then realized that they weren't big enough to hold a tank.

After rejoining the Da Vinci and enjoying lunch aboard, we were offered a walking tour of Middleburg. It is the second of only 2 things I refused on this trip, and am sorry I did. I missed seeing a fascinating, historic town. At 1:30, the boat departed Middleburg to cruise to Veere, where I DID participate in a walking tour. This huge old Cathedral-turned-protestant-church has a lot of history. Napoleon took it over for his troops, and turned the whole lower level into a stable for his horses, the second level was a hospital, and the upper level was housing for the troops. He took out the huge stained glass windows and bricked it all in. It was never the same again!

The Foucault's Pendulum in the Grote Kerk in Veere, Netherlands (where Napoleon's horses lived!). This is way too complicated to tell about - if you are interested, google it! It has to do with the rotation of the earth on its axis.