Walcheren Coast

The ancient freezing coast calls to your inner adventurer, the part of you that could follow the coasts of the world looking for friendly little villages to plunder with your band of outrageous warriors. The thought is appealing, however you never learned to swim, and so the satisfied smile you are displaying as you daydream quickly turns into a sober straight line, silent and somber in its absolute understanding that you will never ever be a viking. Walcheren is a former island in the province of Zeeland in the Netherlands at the mouth of the Scheldt estuary. It lies between the Oosterschelde in the north and the Westerschelde in the south and is roughly the shape of a rhombus. The two sides on the side of the North Sea consist of dunes; the rest of its coastline is made up of dykes. Originally, Walcheren was an island, but polders and a dam across the Oosterschelde have connected it to the (former) island of Zuid-Beveland, which in turn has been connected to the North Brabant mainland. In Roman days, the island was a point of departure for ships going to Britain and it had a temple of the goddess Nehalennia who was popular with those who wished to brave the waters of the North Sea. The Romans called it "Wallacra", a term most likely associated with Walha, the name Germans used for all foreign peoples. Walcheren was the seat of the Danish Viking Harald, who conquered the present Netherlands together with his compatriot Rorik in the ninth century. One fringe theory has it that it was the island described by Ibn Rustah as the seat of the khagan of the Rus'. Another fringe theory mentions Walcheren as the seat of Hades, described by Homer.