Star Fort Forever

I've been neglecting this blog pretty hard for over a month but now I'd like to update it with what I've been doing. Don't expect too much though, unfortunately, I can only travel for a couple of days at a time unless I skip lecture.

This post is about the first thing I did outside of Groningen, way back on February 24th. I visited Fort Bourtange which is a star fort in the village of Bourtange, a small village about an hour's drive away from Groningen. You can read the wikipedia article here, but all you really need to see to understand is this aerial photograph:

As you can see, the fortification has a very unique shape.

While it may look nice in the picture Star Fort isn't really an amazing place to see in the winter, but I went with my friend Kenton so it was still pretty fun. It turns out it's about a 45 minute walk from the nearest village, which isn't very fun in the cold and wind, but it did let me see what the fields in the Netherlands look like and let me tell you, they are completely flat. Here are some pictures of the walk there:

It's really really flat.

Even in the country you can find some nice architecture.

Walked past a few horses.

It was so windy we even saw a guy flying a kite.

A couple weird art pieces at an antiques shop we passed by.

Finally, entering the village around Star Fort

A map of the surrounding area

Welcoming/information center.

Once we actually got in to Star Fort it was pretty nice, there were a few little shops and cafes in the center along with a lot of grassy areas to sit and relax at. It's definitely a place that I could see being very nice in the summer, but unless you're really interested in the history it's kinda meh to go during the winter.

In the center there was a horse like structure that apparently used to be used for torture. Unfortunately neither my Dutch or my German is good enough to translate what it says.

Star Fort is mostly made up of motes and really steep slopes. This seems to be just fine for the big horn sheep we saw wandering around.

Star Fort even has its own flag!

A windmill and a cannon, two things you can always expect to find at a Dutch fort.

Star Fort is also very close to Germany, we were only about 2km away from the border.

Leaving Star Fort I saw this metal sculpture which I thought had very strange positioning...

One last shot of the windmill and flag on the way out.

 I'll definitely have to go back and visit when the weather is nicer. Now that I know how to get there I should be able to just use the buses and skip the 45 min walk, so it'll be pretty nice.

I've got some home work to do now, but I've decided to catch up on blogging the next few days. Expect more posts about Martini Tower and Amsterdam soon!