Netherlands Friesland

Well-known buildings in the city centre include the Kanselarij (the former chancellery), the Stadhouderlijk hof, former residence of the stadtholders of Friesland, the Waag, the church of Saint Boniface church and the leaning tower Oldehove. The tallest building in the city is the 115 metre tall Achmeatoren. Leeuwarden is also the site of the country's largest cattle market, and on Ascension Day, the largest flower market in the Netherlands is held here. The Froskepolemolen is the last surviving windmill of over 130 known to have stood in Leeuwarden. The remains of the Cammingha-Buurstermolen were demolished in 2000. The bases of two other windmills, Wielinga-Stam and De Haan also survive.

The town is founded on three artificial dwelling hills, of which the first was built some time before Christ. Bolsward was a trading city with a port in the Middle Ages. The middlesea connected the port to the North Sea, but this connection was lost when the middlesea was reclaimed from the sea. As a trading city, Bolsward was granted city rights by Philip the Good in 1455. Bolsward was also a member of the Hanseatic league. It was the center of the former municipality named Bolsward, before that was merged into Sudwest Fryslan. Several annual festivals are celebrated in Bolsward.

The city contains two major museums, the Eisinga Planetarium and the Museum Martena. The Planetarium is an orrery built by a local wool carder to explain a conjunction of the planets and to help mitigate local fears of what would happen during the planets' alignment. Built in Eisinga's own living room, it is one of the oldest operating orreries in the world. The Museum Martena is housed in a manor house built in 1498 and is devoted to the history of the city and the region. The windmill Arkens is a hollow post mill which has been restored. It originally stood in Arkens and was moved in 1972. It is the only windmill in the Netherlands equipped with Vlinderwieken (English: Butterfly sails).

Terschelling is an island in the northern Netherlands, one of the West Frisian Islands. Known for their resourcefulness in using anything and everything that washes ashore, with few trees to use for timber, most of the farms and barns are built with masts recovered from shipwrecks. The islands are surrounded by shipwrecks, and even today many containers wash ashore that are blown off the decks of cargo ships in the North Sea. A large part of the island has become a nature reserve. Terschelling can be reached by ferry from the mainland Frisian town Harlingen and from Vlieland by high-speed catamaran.