Cycling tour Medemblik

Over the centuries, the West Frisian landscape has shown an alternation of open water, mudflats, salt marshes and swamps. The rather high creek ridges that run right through West Friesland remind us of these old times. They are sand-filled tidal creeks. Outside the creeks, clay was deposited that would later sink in. Eventually, due to sedimentation of sand and clay, the sea had built up a bastion that disappeared under a meter thick vast and uninhabitable peat cover.
Already around the year 700, the first inhabitants of today's Medemblik settled at the end of a creek ridge at the mouth of a peat river. The old Medemblik developed into an important international and regional trade center. The early medieval extractions around Medemblik were followed in the 11th and 12th centuries by a real wave of mining. The cultivation of a peatland is inevitably accompanied by a process of subsidence. If you let water run out of peat soil, it collapses (clumping). The peat plants also surface and digest by the oxygen in the air (oxidation). Little remains of the peat cover that has been on the surface in West Friesland due to clumping and oxidation. Subsidence made the land not yet protected by dikes vulnerable to flooding. Due to storm surges in the second half of the 12th century, a large part of the hinterland of Medemblik was lost, especially in the north.
In the course of the 12th century, West Friesland was severely cornered, not only by the water but also by the counts of Holland who eventually succeeded in subjugating West Friesland. In Medemblik a forced castle was built to keep the rebellious West Frisians in check.

This tour by bike offers a glimpse into the landscape, past and present in and around the picturesque town of Medemblik. We wish you a lot of cycling fun.
The cycle tour has a length of 18.7 km and it starts and ends at Dam Square in Medemblik.