Makkum-Witmarsum | Section 10 of the Klooster Claercamppad pilgrimage trail

Section 10 of the Klooster Claercamppad pilgrimage trail takes you from the coastal village of Makkum, along the shore of Lake IJsselmeer and the Wadden Sea and past an old ring dike near Pingjum to Witmarsum.

At Makkum you climb up onto the Zuiderzee dike and head north along the shore of Lake IJsselmeer to the little village of Zurich. Several church towers can be seen in the low-lying landscape on your right. In the past, the clay soil here was dug out and baked into bricks and tiles. The monks showed the people of the Northern Netherlands how to build kilns in the fields.   

You walk under the highway that leads motorists to the Afsluitdijk and end up back at the familiar Wadden Sea coast. Here you turn eastward again and make your way to the dike known as Pingjumer Gulden Halsband, the Gold Collar of Pingjum.

This old ring dike that is so beautifully named surrounds the village of Pingjum and is still virtually intact. It is possible to walk along it. From this vantage point, you look out over the long clay fields used to grow potatoes and beets.

The Vinea Domini Monastery, which once stood northwest of Pingjum, owned ten farms and 300 hectares of land. To protect their farmland and mound villages from the sea, the monks and the people of Zurich, Pingjum, Witmarsum, Arum and Kimswerd, hauled no fewer than three million stretchers of soil to build a 20-kilometre dike. An incredible achievement! 

Witmarsum was the birthplace of the influential Anabaptist religious leader, Menno Simons. There is a charming little district around the Dutch Reformed Koepelkerk church with a bridge, a warehouse and a rectory. There is also still an Anabaptist church in the village. 

This route is part of the Klooster Claercamppad pilgrimage trail.