Visiting the lowest point of the Netherlands — about seven metres below sea level — sounds like an exotic destination, especially since the country is already famous for its low-lying land. And if we ignore the Caspian Sea depression, this is actually the lowest point in Europe together with Denmark’s Lammefjord. Officially, Nieuwerkerk aan den IJssel shares the title of the lowest point in the European Union, at 6.76 metres below average sea level.
The romantic idea of standing at the lowest point of the Netherlands and the EU isn’t actually all that romantic. The monument marking the spot sits in a rather dull and perhaps slightly scruffy place next to the E20 motorway. On the other hand, that makes it very easy to reach, and it’s only about a twenty-minute drive from central Rotterdam. If the roar of passing traffic wasn’t enough to kill the romantic mood, the other side of the site is lined with industrial buildings where, among other things, trucks are sold. In a way, the point has been sandwiched between the two.
For me, the location was quite convenient. I had left my hotel near Eindhoven and was heading first toward the northernmost point of Belgium, and from there to Zandvoort and the Formula 1 circuit. So this place naturally fell along my route. There was no drama about the drive itself, and although the place today is admittedly rather boring, the fact that a deep lake called Zuidplas once lay here was fascinating. In 1816 King William I decided that the lake should be drained, as the land was considered valuable for agriculture. In 1825 the reclamation finally began. With the help of 30 windmills, the water was drained into a ring-shaped canal, and the work was completed in 1840. Forty years later, steam pump houses took over the job of regulating the water level. Nowadays, electric pumps have mostly replaced the earlier structures, except in a few locations.
And I have to admit that the monument itself was surprisingly captivating. Its purpose is to show how high sea level actually rises above you, and it’s a wild thought to realise just how many metres of water are sitting over your head.
On this August day there were no crowds of visitors. More cars seemed to be heading toward the truck dealership, and I had my own small problem: once again I had managed to fill up my phone’s storage with photos and videos, and I cursed the fact that not everything had synced to iCloud. I ended up using mostly my work phone to take souvenir photos. But at that moment, that felt like a smaller issue compared to the fact that I had, once again, drunk a bit too much — and in these low-lying areas, there didn’t seem to be an easy solution to that problem.