Schiermonnikoog.

Schiermonnikoog is the smallest inhabited Wadden Sea Island of the Netherlands. It has approximately 900 inhabitants. This Frisian Island is seventeen kilometers long and four kilometers wide. On the Island is a village, which is also called Schiermonnikoog. The Island became it’s name with thanks to the first inhabitants: the Cistercian monks, that are dressed in gray cowls. Schier = gray, monnik = monk, oog = island: island of the gray monks.

The beaches of Schiermonnikoog belong to the widest beaches of Europe. There is enough space for everybody to make his own beach activities.The wide sand plate at the eastern point of the island is called “de Balg”. It is surely worthwhile to visit this special point, where you will think, that you are the only person on earth.

Schiermonnikoog is a National Park. Half of the plants and flowers that can be found in the Netherlands you can find here. The nature is very versatile: here you can find dunes, beach, forests, mud flats and polder.

On Schiermonnikoog you can still find the real tranquility and silence. The car is left behind on Lauwersoog, you discover the compact Island by foot or with the bicycle. You can still “hear” the silence when you go into nature.
The starry sky is nowhere else so beautiful as on Schiermonnikoog: one of the darkest places of the Netherlands. No light pollution but a real black night with the Milky Way and millions of sparkling stars, which make you fall silent.