This is no ordinary walk. The Wormer Boot Path takes you into the heart of the Jispervelden, one of the most authentic and relatively unknown meadow bird areas in North Holland.
You begin your walk in Wormer, where narrow paths immediately draw you into the open landscape. Soon you leave the village, and your gaze stretches across endless meadows. The ground is soft and clayey — hence the 'boot path'. You walk along ditches and canals where reed buntings skim, and you hear the chirping of meadow birds that you do not always see. In the distance, the polder ditches reflect the skies of North Holland.
Halfway along the route, you reach the viewpoint overlooking the Jispervelden — a moment of silence and space. You look out over a vast polder landscape with shifting light and cloudscapes. In spring and summer, black-tailed godwit, redshank, and lapwing breed here. In autumn, when the boot path is still open, you see the colors in the reeds slowly change. The return journey takes you through other parts of the area, past farms and ditch banks. You are back in Wormer before you know it — but you take the landscape home with you.
