This series of engravings represents Friesland’s eleven cities with their proud city gates and their harbours.
All of them are strategically and conveniently situated on major waterway junctions. Due to increasing trade activity in the late Middle Ages, the importance of these towns grew, which is why they were awarded city rights.
Nowadays, the Eleven Frisian Cities are better known from the Elfstedentocht, the 200 kilometers-long skating marathon on natural ice. In the Netherlands, every time temperatures fall below zero, there is an outbreak of the so-called Elfstedentocht fever, a feeling of unrest, longing and excitement : “Will it be on again, this year?”