A TERRACE AT THE CROSSROADS

“The Shop” is my favourite place to spend (part of) the day, but on sunny days my bike leads me to a small bar, with an excellent located terrace, where you can have an excellent lunch as well. It is located at one of the shakra-points of this town. A place where streams and roads (used) to meet, though the water is gone now, and where 4 roads meet in the centre of town.

In ancient days, during the reign of the Frisian kings, this was part of an important pilgrims-route. A path that lead from the North counties, as far as Atlantis, used by Hyperboreans, to visit “the Lonely Mountain”, an important ceremonial and spiritual place used for thousands of years and guarded and maintained by the Frisians. Later it was called “the Japiks- or Jacobspath”, which continued into Spain. “The Mountain” was the only hill, for miles around and had been an imprtant pagan monument. The “Hill of Almenum” was a “Dome of the Gods” and large armies were gathering here.

The path is a normal road and 50 meters to the left the ceremonial entranceway to the top started. Visitors had to pay the temple-guards to go on.

The last 50 meters are still a steep climb, but then an open space awaits the pilgrim. Here around 1780 a protestant church was build, right on top of a catholic predecessor. Build in stone in the 13^th century, but older wooden chhurches go as far back as the year 777. The dawn of christianity in Northern Frisia.

Due to the Reformation it became a protestant church of the Dutch Reformed Church, forcing the Catholics to go underground. In the 1900's 70% of the population was protestant and the 4 viggars were paid by the local authorities.

These are the things I visualise sitting in the sun and sipping my beer. Most people don't know this part of local history, although they walk or drive this ancient route.