In the six Wadden Museums, you will discover the history of the Groningen Wadden coast and its inhabitants. Some go back centuries, others take you to a slightly more recent history. But they all have one thing in common: the Groningen Wadden coast. Go back in time to dikes and mounds, monks, early fishing, village life and the stately Groninger borgen. Each museum lets you experience the Wadden area in its own way.
Meet 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, and Ezinge is 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 the lives of 19th-century nobility, farmers and farm workers. In the borg, it is as if the residents just walked away for a while. The exhibitions in the borg, the farm, the labourer's house and the coach house are linked to a walk across the estate with the Verhildersum To Go! experience route. This way you will discover the beautiful sculpture garden and the farmlands with moats, canals, ancient crops, fruit and cattle breeds. You can easily spend a whole day at Verhildersum. For little explorers there is also plenty to do. They can do assignments, feel what it's like to lie in an old-fashioned box bed, be a damsel or knight in the borg, play in the nature experience garden, romp around with the playground equipment and pet the goats in the animal pasture.
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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 what life was like before these luxuries were available to us. 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 Rijksbetoningsloods, you will find Visserijmuseum Zoutkamp. In this characteristic, historic building, you get the opportunity to see and experience the history and development of Zoutkamp's fishery. 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
Menkemaborg is one of the province's most beautiful borgen. Its residents have not been there for years. Yet it feels as if 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 Wad 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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