Very slowly getting into a rhythm
Well, almost, it still feels like (fairly extended) vacation, but I’m starting to allow myself to take time for my own stuff.
But talking about vacation, first we went back to Walcheren for another week, which despite the rain, and there was a lot of rain, was glorious. I also took a lot of photographs, so in terms of my retirement plans that also was quite productive.
During our vacation we also visited Arnemuiden, which today is a fairly small, fairly modern looking suburb of Middleburg. Go a few centuries back Arnemuiden was an important harbour on Walcheren, sitting at the mouth of the river Arne which linked Arnemuide with the Verse Meer and thus with international trade. History of Arnemuiden
What piqued my interest is that Arnemuiden was an important trading center for salt. Originally Zeeuwse Zout was made by burning turf, but in the 16th century Iberian and French sea salt was refined on Walcheren.
Part of this salt was used to salt fish, some of which was traded down the Rhine and was then offloaded in Cologne, see Trading Goods of Cologne and especially Ventgüter.
Another part of this salt was traded directly, partly down the Rhine to Cologne, where it was either traded on, or used in the salt fish trade which provisioned large parts of the southern Holy Roman empire with fish for lent and other religious fast days.
In a (not really) surprising twist, cruising the History of Arnemuiden I happened on this page, Rheinisches Steinzeug
Coming back to photography, there was also time for a visit to Cologne Zoo.
