After 10 days driving up to Denmark’s most northerly point and back, our road trip was nearly over. Now, with home calling, we headed south towards the Harwich ferry. That Sunday lunchtime, a couple of hours’ drive from our destination, we’d broken our journey with a stop on one of the Netherlands’ greatest engineering masterpieces.

Looking north-west, the Waddenzee’s stormy grey water stretched 30km away towards the West Friesian Islands. In the opposite direction, on the man-made Ijsselmeer, daring kitesurfers skimmed the waves against a backdrop of snow-white wind turbines before flying metres high during their breathtaking turns.

Returning to the Hook of Holland from the land of Hygge, Lego and Vikings, we could have travelled inland via Bremen and Utrecht to the Stena ferry’s welcoming maw. Simpler perhaps, a slightly shorter drive, but given the Netherlands’ historic relationship with the sea, it seemed a shame not to explore the coast. What better, we thought, recalling long-ago school lessons about how the Dutch created their polders from the sea, than a stop at the Afsluitdijk Wadden Center.

This modern visitor centre is located near the north end of the 32-kilometre-long Afsluitdijk, the arrow-straight ‘closure dyke’ built between 1927 and 1932 from Den Oever (North Holland) to – amusingly, I thought, imagining fondue and rösti – the Friesland village of Zurich.

The good weather we’d enjoyed in Jutland had turned into gusty wind and biting raindrops since leaving Groningen – the Netherlands ‘capital of the north’ – where we’d stayed the previous night. As well as the kitesurfing, our stop on the Wadden-zee delivered other high-
lights: escape from the weather; a reasonably priced restaurant; welcoming staff; and a ridiculously low entrance charge for the hexagon-walled building’s exhibitions.

It was easy to spend a couple of hours exploring the fascinating interactive, multi-media and VR displays covering the Afsluitdijk’s past, present and future. It’s not all civil engineering either: the dyke’s social impact, its flora and fauna, and the mechanics of fish migration through the 300m-wide dyke are sure to engage adults and children alike.

Does your interest in the Dutch battle with the sea go beyond little Hansje Brinker who – fictionally – put his finger in the dyke and saved his town? If so, you’ll love the Afsluitdijk Wadden Center.

As we said ‘tot ziens’ and left for our own battle with the Sunday afternoon traffic around Amsterdam and The Hague, we knew we’d pay another visit the next time we were in the area.