In the six Wadden museums, you can discover the history of the Groningen Wadden coast and its inhabitants. Some take you back centuries, whilst others focus on more recent history. But they all have one thing in common: the Groningen Wadden coast. Step back in time to dykes and mound settlements, monks, the fishing industry of yesteryear, village life and the stately Groningen borgen. In each museum, you’ll experience the Wadden Sea region in its own unique way.
Discover the museums:
Museum Wierdenland
Close to town in picturesque Ezinge is Museum Wierdenland. In the middle of one of the oldest cultural landscapes of Europe: the National Landscape Middag-Humsterland. People lived here on mounds more than 2,500 years ago. Ezinge is even the oldest permanently inhabited village in the Netherlands. In Museum Wierdenland, you get to know this unique landscape, its inhabitants and their struggle against the North Sea and Wadden Sea. The permanent exhibition shows archaeological finds from the region, such as a real horse grave. Museum Wierdenland is in fact the only archaeological museum in Groningen. Besides the permanent display, there is a temporary exhibition every six months. The little ones will also have a great time here; children can learn about history while exploring. Finished? Then you are now ready for the real museum: the wierdenlandscape.
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Museum Borg Verhildersum
At Museum Borg Verhildersum in Leens, you stap into the lives of the nobility, the farmer and the farm labourer of the 19th century. Inside the manor house, it’s as if the residents have simply stepped out for a moment. The exhibitions in the manor house, the farmhouse, the labourer’s cottage and the coach house are linked to a walk across the estate via the ‘Verhildersum To Go!’ discovery trail. This way, you’ll discover the beautiful sculpture garden and the countryside with its canals, moats, centuries-old crops, and varieties of fruit and vegetables. You can easily spend a whole day enjoying yourself at Verhildersum. There’s plenty for little explorers to enjoy too. They can complete activities, experience what it’s like to lie in an old-fashioned box bed, play at being a damsel or a knight in the castle, play in the nature discovery garden, let off steam on the playground equipment and stroke the goats in the animal paddock.
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Openluchtmuseum Het Hoogeland
Who can live without a car, smartphone, computer or television these days? At Openluchtmuseum Het Hoogeland, you can experience how things were before we had these luxuries at our disposal. The museum in the middle of the village still stands exactly where it used to. So it's like stepping back in time. Look around an old classroom, the grocery shop, a day labourer's house or one of the other buildings that are still decorated exactly as they were 100 years ago. At Openluchtmuseum het Hoogeland, right in the heart of North Groningen, the past really comes alive.
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Visserijmuseum Zoutkamp
On Zoutkamp's old inner harbour, in a monumental Rijksbetonningsloods, you will find the Visserijmuseum Zoutkamp. In this characteristic, historic building, you get the opportunity to see and experience the history and development of Zoutkamp's fishing industry. The smell of fish, tar, wood and diesel will take you back to the fishing industry of the last century. You will discover how things were on the water, but also at home with the hard-working fisherwomen. Behind the museum, in the courtyard, imagine yourself among the fishermen of the past in Siegerlida's fisherman's cottage. In front of the museum are two fishing boats that you can actually take out on the water.
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Menkemaborg
The Menkemaborg is one of the province's most beautiful borgen. Its residents have not been there for years. Yet it feels like you can hear the carriage rolling along the gravel path at any moment. In the borg you will find a particularly authentic interior and imagine yourself in the 18th century. The borg is surrounded by stylish gardens, moats and a canal where you can take a lovely stroll. For example, walk through the rose tunnel in the kitchen garden or wander through the maze in the fruit garden.
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Kloostermuseum Sint Bernardushof
Between the city and the Wadden is the village of Aduard, built on the remains of what was once one of the largest monasteries in Northern Europe. Everywhere in the village you can still clearly see the influence of the Abbey and the trail of the monks. One of Aduard's oldest houses (from around 1600) has been transformed into the small and atmospheric Sint Bernardushof museum. In the museum you will learn all about the history of the monastery and the influence of the monks on the Groningen countryside. During the 3D walk, you experience how big the monastery really was. Children won't get bored either. They can have fun in the herb garden by making medicinal mixtures or baking monastery bricks.
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