Discover the northernmost part of the Netherlands on foot

This route takes you through the polders of Northeast Groningen. You take a walk around the beautiful villages of Spijk and Bierum. Both villages are on the edge of the Groningen Hogeland, a region that is relatively high due to the silted sea clay. The landscape here is extremely open: you see grass and arable lands, crooked ditches, winding dikes and high skies. Part of the route you walk on the dike along the Ems, the river that flows into the North Sea.

Spijk is a church ring village that was still on the coast in the fifteenth century. Over the centuries, a lot of land has been reclaimed from the sea, so that Spijk now lies between the heavy sea clay. You walk a bit along the Spijksterriet, the stream that still connects Spijk to the Eems. The old center has been designated as a protected village view. You walk past a church whose nave originally dates from the thirteenth century, although it was partly renovated in the seventeenth century after a fire. Around the church are houses, former shops and cafes from the nineteenth century. You will also pass mill Ceres, a corn and hulling mill from 1839. The mill is named after the Roman goddess of agriculture and grain.

Walking through the Hogeland you see some large farms, but also small workers' houses. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the difference between gentleman farmers and smallholder farmers often led to strikes and violence. Nowadays the polders are much quieter. Only the many birds still cause commotion.

Bierum is an authentic wierde village. You will see, among other things, the thirteenth-century Sebastian Church. Against the tower is a buttress with a passage. This buttress was originally intended to support the tower of the church, but due to a fault in the foundation, it is now actually pulling the tower down.