On the Oosterscheldekering you crash into the wind above the sea that swirls under the road. The water has been curbed since 1986 by the storm surge barrier, popularly called Pijlerdam. because of the 65 pillars, each fifty meters high. On the former work island of Neeltje Jans you can go on foot and into that barrier, how beautiful is that.

From Neeltje Jans and the Oosterscheldekering you go a bit over Noord-Beveland and then via the road along the Banjaardstrand onto Walcheren. Motorcyclists have no business at sea, apart from ferry services from one country to another. But the coastline itself has a magnetic effect. N57 offers a view of the Veersemeer that laps against the headland. The view of the sea on the right is hidden from view by the sea wall. Only at Domburg do you get your sights on the North Sea. You want to get out of the saddle for that. Westkapelle is a beautiful Dutch coastal town with no fewer than two lighthouses. A classic white specimen on the outside of the sea wall. And the whopper of the Sint-Willibrordtoren a little further in the village. At a height of fifty meters you can enjoy the view of the sea from orange roofs. Westkapelle was destroyed during the Second World War and that color was almost obligatory during the reconstruction. It goes beautifully with the blue of the sea beyond. In Museum Het Polderhuis, the coffee is freshly brewed. The accompanying apple pie comes from the traditional neighbor bakery. You can enjoy all these goodies in the museum garden under the dike, in the company of a landing craft and a Sherman tank, with which the Allies carried out their second invasion on the west coast of Europe here on Walcheren. The Normandy of the Netherlands is illustrated by the impressive exhibition of Het Polderhuis, about the invasion of 1944 and the suffering and inconvenience it all brought to the Westkapellers and their neighbours.

You snort on a sand ridge in which the Germans had set up a series of bunkers and cannons between 1940 and 1945 to prevent the Allies from using the port of Antwerp, on the other side of the Western Scheldt. After Vlissingen you enter Zuid-Beveland. Until the eleventh century, much of it was flooded and the area was virtually uninhabited. Then Zeeland was reclaimed piece by piece. The fertile Zeeland clay was suitable for agriculture and from the thirteenth century onwards villages and towns were established. The city of Goes arose as the center of South Beveland. Reimerswaal also played an important role and was once one of the most prominent cities in Zeeland. It was in third place after Middelburg and Zierikzee. Reimersdal is the Atlantis of the Low Countries. Due to the Sint-Felix flood in 1530, a large part of the Zuid-Beveland sank in the waves. After 1530, Reimerswaal managed to keep its head above water for another century as a small island in the Verdronken Land van Zuid-Beveland, but in the nineteenth century it disappeared for good in the Oosterschelde.
Subsequent centuries brought new disasters. Counting back from World War II; during the Eighty Years' War, battles rolled over Beveland-Zuid station, the All Saints Flood struck in 1570 and also between 1134 and 1530 there were more than 45 floods that led to flooding. And then there was 1953. We owe not only the formidable Delta Works to the flood disaster of that year, but also the better road connections with the rest of the Netherlands, which brought the Zeeland islands out of their isolation. A little then. Because for many motorcyclists, Zeeland is emotionally further away than the Ardennes, Eifel or Sauerland.
You enter the area known as the Zak van Zuid-Beveland. The Delta Works were designed on the drawing board. Goal-oriented, systematic and straightforward. But in the Zak van Sint-Beveland, the dikes grew organically through centuries of flooding and land reclamation. And you take advantage of those twists. This area is an Eldorado for motorcyclists. A magical Atlantis of asphalt. You wind over the high and winding roads. The reclamation has created one of the oldest and most beautiful polder landscapes in the Netherlands: the Zak van Zuid-Beveland. The view is a delight. Under rows of poplars in the verge, on the lower clay soil are fruit plantations, surrounded by mulberry hedges. Blackcurrant, pear. And apples, for that cake in Westkapelle of course. From above, the landscape looks like a large patchwork of fields, meadows, dikes and creeks.

In Yerseke you drive right past the oyster pits where the oysters wash clean. Not everyone likes that slippery seafood, but the Yersekers are happy with it because they earn a well-stocked sandwich with it. The only mussel auction in Europe is also located here. Every year the Mussel Day takes place here. The sea takes and the sea gives. You pick up a formidable piece of Oude Dijkweg and then you wave goodbye to the double island of Walcheren and Zuid-Beveland. A bridge takes you high and dry to Noord-Beveland. Until 1960, that island was only accessible by boat and guarantees an abundance of peace and space and views over land and water along the way. The Zeeland Bridge takes you to Schouwen-Duiveland. At Ouwerkerk the bike goes on the side stand. The Fifth Caisson serves coffee and Oma's homemade apple pie. Afterwards, take a look at the Flood Museum, dedicated to The Disaster of 1953, when the dikes broke and the sea swallowed the land, plus the houses, people and animals on it. Slowly but surely the flooded land on the sea was regained. The last hole was closed when the tide turned on the night of November 6, 1953, here at Ouwerkerk. The four containers that completed that job are now part of the exhibition about De Ramp and the Delta Works that the Dutch government subsequently launched to prevent more places from joining Reimerswaal underwater. One 'Atlantis' is enough.