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Egmond-on-Sea
After a half hour drive from Amsterdam we parked on Egmond's boulevard and - as is our treasured habit - had coffee first. Though it's early in March and the time was well before noon, the outside service areas of the pubs and restaurants were already crowded.
After our break - can you still call it a 'break', if it's the thing you start with? - anyway, we laced up our boots and began our walk through the sand dunes to Bergen-on-Sea.
Before leaving Egmond, however, I couldn't help inspecting the unexpected momument at the foot of the lighthouse, the impressive lion on top of the pediment, and the solemn tables relating a tragedy of almost two centuries ago, the heroic death of Jan van Speijk.
In 1831, in the first stages of the Belgian Revolt against the autocratic rule of William I, king of the Netherlands - then including Belgium - this young lieutenant, in command of H.M.S. gunboat number 2, was patrolling the Scheldt blocking the harbour of Antwerp.
Drifting down the wind, he ended up against the quay and his boat was boarded by furious Antwerpians, who triumphantly took possession of the flag. On that instant, Van Speijk is said to have shouted, "May I rather blow up", and storming down into the magazine set fire to the powder and blew up the boat, himself and all aboard.
He hardly had reached twenty-nine years of age, having celebrated his anniversary a week earlier. |
