Bicycle route Het lege land – 34 km

Cycling route along bell-shaped farms in Schagen and surrounding areas. The Stolpen Route around Schagen bridges the distance between the West Frisian city of Schagen, which is surrounded by oily clay, and the rugged coastal area with the poor soil behind the dunes. This difference is also clearly visible in the two museum farms along this route. The rich Vreeburg bell jar with house on the Loet in Schagen and the small simple dune farm Tante Jaantje in Callantsoog. In the area around Schagen, the farms are forced to be located on mounds due to the many floods in the past. A number of mounds were connected to each other over time. This is how the West Frisian Zeedijk was created. The dike offered protection, but also had many dike breaches. The dike lost its greatest importance as a water barrier due to the reclamation of the Zijpe (1599). Dozens of farms were established at the bottom of this former estuary. There are many cloches here along both sides of the Grote Sloot, an important traffic artery in the past. Behind the farmyards the empty land begins; Previously mainly intended for livestock farming, but nowadays flower bulb cultivation predominates. There are also bell jars along the polder roads. The bulb country extends to the row of dunes. The dune farms are modest in size. But the farms that were originally intended for arable farming are large, often with a double square. Here the bell jars are no longer side by side. There is not only a lot of space behind the farms, but also between them.