De Stenen Man

There was a tall dike here which protected the city of Harlingen from the sea. It wasn’t as safe as it is now, back then, the dike of Harlingen was damaged because of a huge flood. Work was immediately set to restore the dike. This is natural since the city of Harlingen won’t be there if it weren’t for the dike. Three thousand people were used to restore the dike. As you can imagine, it was a matter of survival, the tide will come back in twelve hours and time is of the essence. Needless to say the dike was eventually repaired and the city was saved.

Overlooking the City of Harlingen

Two centuries later, a monument was built in honor of this event. De Stenen Man or the Stone Man stands on top of the dike overlooking the Wadden Sea. It isn’t really clear that this was supposed to a statue of a man but I didn’t worry about it. If you walk a little further from the statue, you would see that it indeed looks like a man. From here you can see the nearby city of Harlingen. If this sounds like a recent event, it wasn’t. This all happened in 1575. The monument was built in 1774. I had no idea it was that old. The monument itself looks like it was built recently though but it older than it looks. It is interesting to know stories like these as it puts into perspective the places you visit.

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