Heiloo

Heiloo is a suburban town on the railway line to Haarlem and Amsterdam. The village is an old settlement on a sand ridge, and the church is associated with the earliest Christian missionaries in the region, led by the monk Willibrord. Beside the church is a holy well which bears his name, one of several in the region. However the oldest church was destroyed in 1573, again by the troops of Diederik Sonoy, and the present church dates from around 1650. The rest of the village has some quiet rustic streets, and not much else. On the local internet forum, a user posted this question on 'Backpackers in Heiloo' in February 2006: "I have friends coming from Australia in a few weeks and we can't go to the beach, and I wonder if there's anything to do here." To which another user replied: "Indeed there's nothing to do here. Heiloo is meant for living in, and not for doing anything interesting."