Frank Jansen Photography

One of the attractions that we hadn’t had a chance to see earlier during our trip was a castle. The castle of choice is the Muiderslot, which was built in the late 13th century to enforce the collection of tolls from traders wanting to go up the river Vecht towards Utrecht.

Even though this castle is a nice example of what everyone expects a castle to look like, it played a more significant role as a jail than as a traditional castle occupied by nobility. The most significant prisoner was the original builder of the castle, Floris the 5th, Count of Holland. The nobility that surrounded him were fed up with the changes made by him and jailed him in 1296 and subsequently murdered him during a hunt.

The castle was a center of literary arts during the early 17th century when P.C. Hooft, a famous Dutch poet, writer and historian, who surrounded himself with a circle of literary friends at the Muiderslot during the summer months. P.C. Hooft was also a judge who held court at the castle.

For the past 125 years the castle has been a national museum with a great collection of medieval and 17th century objects. The tour is highly recommended, but in Dutch.

One of the unique features in the Netherlands are houseboats; as land is at a premium in the small country, people have long looked for other means of having a place to live. Besides reclaiming land from the lakes and the sea, living on the water has been embraced as an option.

As water is everywhere in the Netherlands, it should be no surprise that willows are a prevalent tree species. The willows capacity to take in water makes it useful in helping to manage water and its branches can be harvested. The branches are particularly useful when woven into mats, as these are flexible and strong and can be used under water to create edges that prevent land erosion and as a base material in dike building.

These ‘knotwilgen’ (knotty willows) are the result of the harvesting of the branches. They are a common sight along the canals and moats of the Netherlands.

I hope you enjoyed this series of vignettes of the Netherlands. Unfortunately, my trip was very short and we didn’t have a lot of time to visit the sights, but I wanted to share this overview with you.

Groeten uit Amerika!