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Fort Vechten
Sundays in 2007 |
Saturday
15th November 2003, the
groundwork was laid for a replica of a Roman
watchtower as could be found all along the Limes.
This turris or watch-
tower has now been built between the 19th-century
fortress and the field which
still covers the remains of the castellum
Fectio. The tower was officially opened
on May
16th, 2004. Every
season since then the tower is open on Sundays
from about April until late July, and August
until late October. During some of these Sundays
(and of course the Open Monument Weekend in
September) the tower is guarded by a patrol of
Roman soldiers, and sometimes that guard is
provided by Fectio. |
Fort Vechten, southeast of Utrecht. |
Detailed image of the area. |
October 14th:
Last guard duty at the tower.
  
It's the last guard duty, and again we have a real good
day for it. Warm in the sun, but already getting cold in
the sahadow due to a strong wind that had our draco
dancing and the sides of our tent buckling against the
ropes. The ladies also visited us at our remote spot, a
welcome relief from the uneventful guard along the Limes..
     
Posing with my daughter, fighting with my son - not a bad
way to spend the day. But when the lengthening shadows
finally reached our warm shelter, they all went home,
leaving a lone Late Roman guard to finally gather all our
belongings, loading up to go home for the last time this
year.
October 7th:
Corbvlo is again at the tower.
There's Romans at the tower! |
Tiberius and Jurjenius from Corbvlo
have guard duty today. |
Jurjenius. |
Again a good day to be guarding the Limes... |
September
2nd: Corbvlo is once more at the tower.
     
A very fine day, and we visited Corbvlo during
their relaxed guard duty. Gerard, Jurjen and Dalou only
took time from supping their lentil soup when
occasionally holding up the locals, demanding passwords
and 'gifts'. Besides that, mending material seemed all
the rage that day. On the rise to the east, a hut was the
first sign of the coming important weekend. Conspicuous
names inside?
August 26th:
Back from the holidays
 
We returned to the tower in August. The
summer was still going for us, although there was a lot
of wind at times.
Not too bad for our new tent though, which we took with
us for the first time.
    
We had a very good day, never a dull moment. Jeroen had
fun playing with the new tent and
fighting his old man - watch out for that javelin! Of
course, I had to kill him - many times!
     
We had plenty of visitors, including our local Frenchman
Lafayette and his motorised transport :-) Many kids
wanting
to be dressed up as a Roman, as well as their parents...
But we also had some very good conversations about Roman
times.
June 3rd:
Corbvlo is at the tower.
  
 
Our friends
Tiberius (Gerard) and Jurjenius (Jurjen)
of the group Corbvlo had a very nice day keeping
watch over the Limes. Jeroen and me were on our
way to the site of the original fort of Fectio,
which was unusually open to the public. The orchard which
covers the site, had been used for an art project: by
following a route, parts of a novel could be found. Well,
it was hot and humid, and I'm sure I missed some parts!
It was interesting to get a 'feel' of the site, which is
impossible otherwise. I found that the orchard lies quite
high above the surrounding land, and that it's large too.
After getting tired of running around we had a nice chat
with our friend before cycling home again.
May 6th: The Limes
suffers under a record drought.
 
We returned
to the tower in May in a record drought. Luckily there
were still some patches of shade.
By start
of early May the country had been suffering from a record
drought that had lasted an unprecedented 45 days. The air
became so dry that vision increased to 75 kilometers (source:
KNMI)!
Well, for us the weather was great - not too hot and
perfect to camp at the foot of the tower. We draped our
cloacks on the grass to display the equipment, and
enjoyed what we brought with us, added to by the food
from the Fort. Not too many visitors, probably the
forecast had not been inspiring enough to get many people
biking. But those that came were interested enough, and
we had a nice day out.
We had some very interested visitors. |
Jeroen at the usual spot. |
We had great weather that day. |
Posing visitors. |
The draco is flying bodly against a darkening sky. |
A Napoleontic traveller.. |
Another posing visitor. |
Throwing a plumbata - sequence from right to left. |
That afternoon,
the record drought came to an end. When we packed our
belonging together a few drops were felt - they
evaporated before they hit the ground. But then the rains
came - finally - and they did not stop for two weeks.
Finally a more normal spring had set in.
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