IJMUIDEN HOOG VUURTOREN
Ijmuiden, Netherlands
After successfully negotiating my way back over to the laaglicht and getting photographs, I proceeded to find my way through yet another Dutch maze called a city. If you saw the map I had to work with you'd understand why I can't give better details about how to see these lights. Drive to a high point on the coast and look around, then with whatever sense of direction you have, find your way to the light. Don't lose sight of your position relative to the lighthouse. When traveling in a foreign country, if you can read the letters of the language and match them with what you see on a map, you'll get around. East is still east and the same for West, North, and South. I often take a lot of wrong turns and dead ends. This was one of those times.
It took almost an hour to find that little hill that this hooglicht sits upon. I could see it most of the time, but finding my way back into that area was challenging. And so I walked up to the door whether I was supposed to or not. Ijmuiden Hoog was built at the same time as the laaglicht, 1878, and first lit the same day. This one was switched to electricity in 1909 and the white light flashes every 5 secs. The web site I translated details from shows a light height of 53 meters while the tower is 43. I would take this to mean that the tower only sits 30+ feet above sea level. I thought it was a little higher than that. Those stairs up to the light 'had' to have been 200 feet, he thought, gasping for breath as he trudged up the remaining '50 or so feet'.
Here's how I saw it:
OF THE MOUNTAINS
John B Caddell
Copyright 2001