Panorama Photo

Here a view over Hulst and its famous basilica. I photographed from the platform on the old wind mill (dated 1792) on the fortresses around Medieval Hulst.
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulst_(stad)
Hulst is a rather small city with a proportionally big church: the Holy Willibrordus Basilica, considered the most beautiful church in the Netherlands.
The origin of Hulst goes back to the 11th century. It is built on a Pleistocene sand ridge culminating about 6-7 m above the surrounding Scheldt 'polders'. The polders are low areas along the river which were flooded twice a day during high tide before the land was protected by dikes. However this land and Hulst as well, was connected to the river by creeks allowing small ships to arrive at high tide.

The oldest foundations of a church are dated 13th century but the Willibrordus Basilica was built in the 15th century by architects Everaert Spoorwater and the Keldermans family (many family members were architects) who were also involved with the building of the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp. The tower of the Basilica has been destroyed many times: in 1668 it burned by a lightning strike, in 1876 burned again and in 1944 Polish soldiers shot it down to prevent it from being used as a watchtower over the river Scheldt during the war. The curious upper part of the 60 m high tower as of today is in concrete and designed by Jan Brouwer who won a contest in 1957.

Sights:
http://www.hulstvestingstad.nl/zien-en-doen/bezienswaardigheden/15-binnen-de-vesting.html


Canon G1Xmark2, 7 pics, 26.29 mm (42 mm KB), iso 200, f5.6, 1/500s, stitched with Hugin, 4671x500px, 1.4MB