Dokkum - Sint Benedictuskerk church - Claercamp Monastery| Circular Walk 5 of the Bonifatius Kloosterpad Monastery Route

From the central market square in Dokkum you walk to Bonifatiuskapel, a Catholic chapel dedicated to Saint Boniface built in 1934. Although this beautiful chapel was built relatively recently, the Romanesque architectural features and traditional yellow bricks make it look old.   

You walk along inner dikes in a southerly direction towards to Dokkum. You pass Rinsma State country house and estate and continue on to the village of Damwâld and Sint Benedictuskerk Church, which was an important station on the route between the monasteries near Smalle Ee, Rinsumageast, Burgum and Dokkum.

You arrive at the little village of Rinsumageast, which lies on a salt marsh ridge. Just north of here is the site of Claercamp monastery built in 1165. Claercamper Mar lake was created by the monks who dug out clay to make bricks. The monks also built the first modest dikes, dug ditches and constructed a sea lock in the Dokkumer Ee canal.

The slightly raised areas of land and the remaining canal ditches show that there was once a vast complex here to the east of Dokkum. But the buildings were torn down in 1580 during the Reformation. Keep going until you get to the little medieval church that still stands in the village of Jannum.

Cross the bridge over the Dokkumer Ee canal and continue along the meandering towpath that leads back to Dokkum.