Vlissingen (known in English as Flushing) is a port city on the southwestern tip of the province of Zeeland, where the Western Scheldt estuary meets the North Sea. It has a long maritime history — the sea here is serious, with strong tides and a busy shipping channel carrying container ships and tankers in and out of Antwerp.
The city centre sits behind a long sea boulevard, the Boulevard de Ruyter, which runs along the top of the dike above a wide sandy beach. The historic core retains some 17th- and 18th-century architecture around the Koopmanshaven and the Sint-Jacobskerk, and the town's connections to Admiral Michiel de Ruyter, born here in 1607, are celebrated throughout. The muZEEum tells the city's maritime story, and on a windy stretch of the boulevard the Wind Organ plays itself. Vlissingen is also the gateway to the island of Walcheren, with good cycling routes through the dune landscape and the surrounding polders.