Zurich (Dutch).Surch (Fries).

Today we were on our way to Midlum, when Marja said 'what do you think about going to walk by the sea'?, well I said 'Why not, what do you have in mind'? 
'I know of a little village close by to Harlingen called Zurich' said Marja so off we went.

I love the sea, so when ever we can go I am very delighted to go and walk by the sea and smell the sea air, feel the sea breeze and have your hair whipping around your face, it is very calming and exhilarating at the same time.

It was a very cold day, clear blue skies, your fingers and toes got very numb.

The village Zurich is very small. It lies on the west coast from Friesland , near by the place where the 'Afsluitdyk' joins the Fries Coast, it is also the last Friesian village in Friesland, so to speak.

We parked the car.  As we entered the village, facing us was a little blue building with the name 'Zurich Bank' on it and it looked very much like a curio shop and not a bank.

There were big statues carved out of wood, I took some photo's through the glass windows of the building. One of the statues was of a mother holding a child up in the air above her with out stretched arms,another of a man, whether it was of a Greek god or what I do not know.

We then continued through the village and came across a building with a stone plaque with an inscription on it in dutch, translated in English it means, in ' A.D.1945 on Tuesday 17th April, Zurich got her peace and freedom after five years of fighting '.

We then rounded the corner and came in view of the church which was on a hill (terp).

I noticed that one of the weather vane's on the church was of a buck, the other a hen.

There is not much information on the church, what I did find out was that around the 14th century it was first mentioned under the name 'Suderinge, zuidoever?.

Because Zurch is founded on the South river bank of the Marne.   

Zuricheroordpolder in the years 1725-1730 became damaged by wood worm rot they were replaced by basalt stone in the year 1825. 

In 1963 the dyke was raised to 10 meter + N.A.P. to the so called Delta height, (I am not sure what the abreviations N.A.P. stand for).

We then walked from the church towards the other side of the village crossed over a ditch (sloot) which had a wooden bridge spanning the ditch, which brought you back  to the main road running through the village,  a hotel was facing you as you crossed the bridge.

The church in Zurich used to have a sadle roof (Zadeldak) and in the year 1722 the church was demolished but the tower was left as the people in the village found it necessary to keep and used it as a sort light house for the ships at sea.
 The tower stood alone for nearly a hundred years and in 1864 a new church was added on.

 The villagers do most of their shopping in other surrounding places,  Witmarsum, Makkum of Harlingen.

We started to walk through the rest of the village and saw a house which had a ornamental metal cow's head with a hand bell attached to it as a door bell, and further along the street another house had an ornamental buck head and a hand bell attached as a door bell, whether these two animals have anything to do with the village I do not know as there is a buck on top of the church as a weather vane.


There was another house which had a stone plaque sunken into the wall by the front door of an artist, (kunstenaar).

We came to the end of the village and carried on walking towards the dyke, as we progressed up the graveld road towards the top of the dyke, if we turned around to look, we could see the village in the distance. The sides of the dyke was covered in grass and was a beautiful green in colour, there was still in-poldering being done as we saw a pile of imported stone lying in a heap, ready to be used on the sea dyke I think.

As we rounded the top of the dyke we saw the sea and it was lovely. The blue colour of the sea was outstanding, the bouys bobbing up and down in the water, there was a fishing trawler on the sea going to Harlingen harbour which was not far from Zurich that is why they have so many bouys in the water marking the way for the boats so they do not go aground. There was this seagull standing on the rocks by the side of thesea, you can see how hard the wind was blowing by the ripples in the sea by the seagull.

While we walked along the dyke by the sea there was a very strong, cold, wind we had tears streaming down our faces from the cold, but it was very enjoyable. It was so cold that there was a sort of haze over Harlingen harbour in the distance, you can see it in this photograph as the fishing trawler is hardly visable.

I took a picture of these people from the municipality Wxfbnseradiel, (Gemeente Wxfbnseradiel), they were busy working on the dyke and the wooden fencing, using their tractor to pull the rocks as well as the wood, from below up there.

Everywhere we went people greeted us and were very friendly.

We carried on walking along the top of the dyke back towards the village Zurich and I took some more photographs of the sea and surroundings and as we crossed the escarpment of the dyke we saw the church spire in the distance.

 As we rounded the top of the dyke thevillage from the top of the dyke was beautiful.

We went back to the car, very tired but relaxed, but very cold and glad for the warmth of the car and thinking how we have actually over the three and a half years in between all our walks, we have walked a      large distance of the dyke, from Zurich through to Wiers along the Friesian Coast, now that is certainly something I must write about.  Till next week on our travels. 'Oant Sien', bye bye.

Zurich village. (Courtesy of Flags of the World).

Zurich / Surch is not only a place in Switzerland, but also a tiny villagein Fryslaan, the first settlement one sees when travelling over the"Afsluitdijk" (Enclosuredam), in the municipality of Wxfbnseradiel. As Andrxe9 van der Loo recently wrote, the inhabitants didn't wantto Frisify their placename, as it would take no more Swiss to visit thevillage. Its original name was "Zuderinghe", which meant somethinglike "Southern corner", possibly related to the town of Harlingen. In 1958 it had 340inhabitants.

In 1974 the number had dwindled to 196, mainly because the road from the Afsluitdijk to Leeuwarden and Heerenveen didn't run any more through the village.

But Zurich has a flag.

 
It consists of a red field with a diagonalyellow stripe from top hoist to fly bottom. To the hoist is a small bluestripe, split in the middle by a small white stripe.
Jarig Bakker, 13 May 2003


Zurich Coat of Arms 

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