Kootstertille, Veenklooster, Gerkesklooster

The cycle route passes through several small Frisian villages. You start and end the tour from the TOP in Kollum. The villages of Veenklooster and Gerkesklooster, both filled with a rich history, together form the theme of this route.

Landowner Gercke Harkema had the monastery of Jeruzalem built in 1240 by monks in Wigerathorp, as Gerkesklooster was then called. During the Eighty Years' War, the bell was stolen from the tower and sold. It now hangs in the church of Gadstrup, Denmark.

Veenklooster, or Feankleaster in Frisian, owes its origins to the founding of a monastery. In the 13th century, Premonstratensian monks founded a monastery there: Mons Oliveta, or The Mount of Olives. Originally for men and women, separated by a wall, but eventually only for noble young women. In 1580 there were no sisters left and the States of Friesland took possession. In 1644 the remains came into the possession of the Van Fogelsangh family, who built the Fogelsangh State on the site.