SOME
DUTCH REMARKABLES

It's a pitty, but Holland is no longer only a country of wooden shoes*, cheese, peanut butter and tulips. You will meet with hospitality, but also high steel wind mills and enormous quantities of bicycles and cars. But old façades of houses, ancient wind mills, typical Dutch canals and a wide landscape are still there. In 2006 even 83% of the Dutch among all the 450 million Europeans declared themselves to be and to feel happy, the highest ranking in Europe. And Holland has developed her economy and in the mean time became the gateway to Europe while Rotterdam grew worlds second large sea port.

Rotterdam is the largest sea port in the world and Schiphol the leading airport of arival in Europe. Second is the Amsterdam sea port. In the Haque many international institutions are established such as the International Crime Court, International Court of Justice, Tribunals and the famous Peace Palace (Vredespaleis).

LEADING ENTERPRISES

Many world famous industries are originated in Holland, e.g. Philips, DAF Trucks, Esso, Royal Dutch Shell, Royal Air KLM, KPN telecom, Spyker Cars, int. banks as ABN-Amro and ING, enterprises Bos-Kalis, Calvé, vdBerg en Jurgens, Unilever, Heineken, Akzo-Nobel, Smit-Tak Int., Damen (yachts), Boskalis, TomTom, etc.

FAMOUS DUTCHMEN

Many international known great Dutchmen are artists like Spinoza, Erasmus, de Groot (Grotius), Rembrandt - the greatest international known Dutchman ever -, Steen, Vermeer, van Gogh, Appel, Mondriaan, and scientists like Antoni v. Leeuwenhoek, Lorentz, van der Waal, Huygens, Boerhaave, Veltman, van 't Hooft, Kuyper, van Leeuwenhoek, Kamerlingh Onnes, Oort, Spinoza (17th cent. auctor intellectualis of the Enlightment - les Lumières), Kaptein, Oort, and so on. Also many acknowledge Holland to be the country of inventors.

Only local famous historical Dutchmen are Piet Heijn, Michiel de Ruyter, Tromp, William of Orange, van Oldenbarnevelt, brothers de With and prince Maurits.

Among the 20th and 21th century most famous personalities is, next to the queens, the beloved princess Máxima, wife of prince William-Alexander* (who is next for the throne as 'king' since over 130 years), and socialist politician former prime minister William Drees (introduced old age pension act in '54), WW2-child Anna Frank (and her world famous tree and diary 'the Backhouse') and international football (soccer) player - and languistical artist - Johan Cruijff*.

TYPICAL DUTCH
PRODUCTS, MARKS & BRANDS

World wide known are some original and typical Dutch products as there are peanut butter, chocolate sprinkles, vlokken, silt drop, wentelteefjes, rumbeans, Dutch bitterballs, kroketten, Hague Hops, stroopwafels, boterbabbelaars, Heinz sandwich spread, Gouda cheese and candles, Delfts Blue earthenware, Royal Tichelaar earthenware (oldest Dutch industry, 1572), wooden shoes, tulip flowers and bulbs, old wind mills, city canals, football (soccer) heroes and famous football coaches, etc. Also there are many world famous Dutch industries such as Royal Air KLM(-Air France), Heineken (beer), Douwe Egberts (coffee), Pickwick (thea), Philips (electronics) and Mentos (pepermint dragees), DAF Trucks, FOKKER (airplanes) and maintenance, institute UNI-VERSUM.nl (GaTS world time standard)*, some Dutch originated banks as there are ING and ABN Amro , Akzo-Nobel (paints), Smit-Tak Int. and Boskalis (sea & water projects), Miffy (Dutch: Nijntje)*, Cruijff (int. football phenomenen), Damen (yachts), Hansje Brinkers*, etc. And the black-on-white and red-on-white colored Dutch Friesian cows are famous world over. Yearly over 1.5 million Dutch shop in Batavia Stad (Batavia City) outlet shopping, a shoppingtown* inspired by an old Dutch Hanse image.

SOME DUTCH HISTORY in a nutshell

    It is a miracle the tiny Netherlands, a country the size of a stamp, still exists. A small piece of flat land, partly born out of a delta of rivers or extracted from the seawaters, without mountains and counting fewer citizens than many large cities abroad, but it's a very modern and open one. It's ennemies have been foreign rulers, religious wars, two world wars, the challenging sea, flooding rivers and a language that is understood by a few. Centuries ago Holland was the mighty founder of New Amsterdam, now known as New York. If it was not for the fact that it sold New Amsterdam to the Englishman - and got Suriname -, maybe Dutch had become todays world language instead of English.

    During the Dutch 'Golden Age', the seventeenth century, Holland was the economic world power and played a significant and dictating role in world history. The Republic of the Netherlands was the first recognized modern capitalistic world power. Amsterdam became the financial centre of Europe and the world. Holland ruled the seas and tradefare in those days. The East Indies and the West Indies, for instance, were its rich colonies. It had possessions in North America, in South America (Suriname), in the Caribians and a.o. founded South Africa's capital Cape Town. The Dutch VOC enterprise was a mighty economic booster for the tiny Netherlands f.i. by conquering and ruling (as a private company) the large Indonesian archipel. It also once was the only western nation having trading connections with China and Japan in those times. Later on, however, this very small nation of only a few million people was overruled, next to Spain and France, by the dominating English millitary power. But up till now the country possesses some remains of that glorious episode of her heroic history.

    The Dutch are originated in former Germanic, Celtic and Batavi tribes that lived on the soil of the river delta left after by the Schelde, Rhine and Meuse. After a poor feodale era during the dark ages it was ruled by Spanish and France rulers. It had to fight the eithy years war that was ended in 1648 by the peace concordat of Münster in Germany. From that moment on these low land countries (the Netherlands) became more and more a nation that loved and enjoyed its indepandence. It has been and is politically and economically an incredable stable country, thanks to few strikes and calm political activities. Yet the nation met with two political murders. The first in 1584 took as victim city holder William of Orange, called the father of the fatherland. The second one was politically active citizen P. Fortuyn in 2002. Some acknowledge him as a great Dutchman, but in fact he did not do the country any good. In a short time he sharpened the differences between autochtone and the allochtone citizens, just as happened centuries ago when new faithes appeared in Europe and the country was also spiritual devided. And he set in motion the undermining of social securities, too. Still the Low Lands strongly survive, but it seems to have lost a large bit of its famous innocense, uninhibitedness and tolerant image. But it keeps working on that issue to improve her former image.

    The Netherlands always have to deal with the one ennemy: water. Half of the country finds itself over three meters below sea level, so a continuous and never ending struggle against the sea and rivers is of daily interest. Building dykes and dams has kept the country busy for ages. The Afsluitdijk - the DYKE - has been one of the most colossal enterprises ever undertaken by men. This enormous dyke 75 years ago dammed the Zuythersea from the Northsea and was part of the total Zuythersea Project, that also produced the IJsselmeer (Lake IJssel), new dry land and protected part of the country against dammage by stormfloodings. During the second half of the 20th century the country built the enormous Delta Project to secure the countryland from the sea.

    Today Holland is a very cultivated country and its infrastucture is one of the most developed in the world. Hot spots and internet café's are found everywhere, busses and trains are connecting cities and high ways are found across the country. But traffic jam has become a plaque. Take notice when you rent a car. Schiphol has become a main airport and entrance to the Netherlands and even Europe and untill a few months Rotterdam was the largest economic seaport in the world.

    At the moment the Netherlands, like the rest of Europe, are overcomming an economic crisis and employment is growing. It is also comming out of an industrial and agricultural era to become a knowledge based economy. New European rules for open borders make it easy for foreign (EU) hands to get jobs in the Netherlands. But, like many other western nations, the Netherlands also cope with the problem of illegal persons present. Tens of thousands of them are asking to be legalized, but in this respect laws have been sharpened and do no longer allow a residents permit as easy as it used to be.

If uptil now you are of the opinion the Netherlands only consists of a very small part of north-eastern Europe, you ought to know there is a little more. Former small colonies in the caribean region form part of royal territory of the Netherlands (the Dutch West Indies; the Dutch East Indies went lost in 1949 when they became Indonesia). Here in the caribean the queen is even more popular then in her home land. Aruba - only self-governing Dutch territory -, Bonaire and Curaçao, islands situated just north and in front of Venezuela's coast, are, by law, Netherlands, too, by forming the self-governing Dutch territory of the Netherlands Antilles. And so there are the islands Saba, St. Maarten and St. Eustatius, farther north, that are in this jurisdictional way (the Kingdom Statute or Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands, 1954) also part of the Netherlands. It is an intricate way of stabilizing and govern a world wide nation.
We have to admit that there are many problems in the relationship between the home land and its caribean partners. The last have been dealing with drugs smugling and the Dutch navy has to improve control on sea in order to prevent drug smugling into the islands. But also local political ideas and impossibilities to get a job in the region destabilize normal living standards. Half of the Dutch caribeans (130.000) live in Holland. The fear is many caribeans more will come over to Holland, too, when the islands become a selfgoverning and independant nation, just the thing that happened when Indonesia and in later on in 1975 Suriname was founded. Though there was a time these islands meant an income for the Dutch Treasury, now each Dutchman yearly pays €15 to keep these - Dutch - caribean islanddwellers alive. But a new form of relationship between the Netherlands and the caribean islands is in the making, due for 2008.

    Being a member of the European Union (EU, 27 members 2008), this union by far cannot speak of its members to be a united states of Europe. The union does not have a constitution, only a treaty of cooperation. Deep rooted cultural, political and languistical differences overpower the economic necessity and will of the society involved of being a real union for a long time to go. It is not yet a very materialistic society but demands are increasing every day and advertising is creating a growing material oriented public. Since decennia a growing number of temporarely North-African and Turkish labourers did not return home. Thats why the nation is, also in political circles, becomming more and more a multicolor multicultural society. In spite of all this Holland is a lovely country and an experiance while especially well known for its international and open caracter, homogeneity and Golden Age culture. In 2006 over eleven million tourists will visit this country and possibly you will be one of them.

For now,
    welcome to Holland,

TYPICAL
DUTCH HABITS

After World War II the most exiting and turbulance social moment of the Dutch was caused by changing the guilder (f of florin) for the euro (€) in 2002. Uptil now many have lost the feeling of the - hard - guilder security and are of the opinion that money has no value any more (little euro for your guilder, so a loss of buying capacity by prices growing sky high). And also still in the public memory of tens of thousands is the remembrance of 1953 Waterflood - like shortly New Orleans (USA) by Katrina - when a part of Holland was taken by the sea and caused 1800 people to die. In October 1992 a Boeing airplane dived down into a block of apartments killing 48 lives, which is called the 'Bijlmer Disaster'* and rememberd every year. In a larger part of the Dutch peoples memories is still the 'fireworks explosion' in 2000 that totaly wiped out the complete neighbourhood area Roomburg in the town of Enschede.

Well known is bicycling as a Dutch way of being mobile in parts of these overcrowded flat lands. Every year several Dutch cycling equipes are standard a part of the world famous Tour the France - in July - and other cycling events. Orange is the international (export) color - 'Orange' is winning - of a.o. the national football (soccer) team, famous by the EC and especially by the World (football) Championship 2006* and its World Cup. Next to it are well known the Four Day Marches* of Nijmegen in mid July when over 42.200 walkers (from 63 nations) go for 40 km. every day for four days on a row.
When climate is cooperating and the rivers are frozen, thousands of members of the Eleven Cities Tour* foundation are going to skate over 200 hard and harsh kms. through eleven cities this day. Its a world famous event, but sometimes it takes a decennium before a new tour takes place because icy winters are becoming scarce these days.
On one Sunday in July there are the famous TT motorraces in Assen, visited by thousans of people.
The national sport events are centered around the national sport football (soccer). Four teams are the heroes in the top 'Eredivisie' (League of Honour), Ajax (Amsteram)*, Feyenoord (Rotterdam), PSV (Eindhoven) and AZ (Alkmaar). If you are sportinterested you need to know about the outs and ins of these teams and the eleven playing millionairs of each team.
When you come to Holland as a tourist you can travel through the country by hiring a car or bicycle - there are highways and 'cycle paths/fietspaden' - (or take a tram in the cities), by train via a well devoleped railway system or hire a helicopter for a birdseye view of parts of this country and buy a ticket for a boattrip in many places bordering water.
In summer a great part of the country (so some millions) goes abroad on holidays to Spain, France, Italy, Turkey, Austria, Germany, Bulgary or Greece and Egypt. On the other hand over eleven million American tourists visited the Netherlands in 2006, next to many thousand foreigners from other countries. This is spectacular for the European currancy, the euro, is not cheap at this moment. On the other hand, the economy is well running and people are making money and more and more inclined to travel.

TOURIST ATTRACTIONS
clickables !
Famous Dutch constructions and sites you might admire and also wish to visit, and make or buy fotographes of, are the Rotterdam Euromast, the underwater sealife aquarium Sea Life, the Dolfinarium at Harderwijk, the Artis Zoo Amsterdam or Blijdorp Rotterdam Zoo or Burger Zoo Arnhem , childrens fun park the Efteling, the Wadden Islands, the beaches of Scheveningen and beaches of Noordwijk, the Night Watch (Rembrandt), the van Gogh musueum, the Pier at Scheveningen seafront, and beautifull flower garden Keukenhof, the Panorama of Mesdag, the seven wind mills of Kinderdijk, and the planetarium at the Haque or the Omniversum at Rotterdam.