Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
E aTI NG
Pannenkoeken
Restaurant
de Kraai,
located in the open-air
museum, is a self-service eatery offering traditional sweet and
savory pancakes that come with all the fillings you might select for
an omelet—cheese, ham, mushrooms, and so on (€8-10 pancakes,
daily until 18:00, closed Jan, with indoor and outdoor seating).
De Hoop op d'Swarte Walvis
(“The Hope of the Black Whale”)
is the park's splurge, with a white-tablecloth interior, outdoor seat-
ing, and an ambitiously priced menu (€6-7 sandwiches, €35-45
main dishes at dinner, Tue-Sun from 11:00 for lunch and from
17:00 for dinner, closed Mon, tel. 075/616-5629).
Schokland and Flevoland
The Dutch have always had a love/hate relationship with the tem-
pestuous Zuiderzee (“South Sea”). While it provided the Dutch
with a convenient source of fish
and trade—and an outlet to the
Atlantic—the unpredictable bay
also made life challenging. Over
the centuries, entire towns were
gradually eroded off the map.
But in 1918, the Dutch fought
back and began to ingeniously
tame the sea and “reclaim” their
land with the Zuiderzee Works: First they built a sturdy dike (the
Afsluitdijk) across the mouth of the sea to turn a dangerous, rag-
ing ocean into a mild puddle (the IJsselmeer); then they began to
partition pieces of the sea floor, dike them of, and drain the water.
The salty new seabed soil was treated organically and eventually
became fertile farmland.
Today, about a fifth of the Netherlands is reclaimed land—
much of it a short drive northeast of Amsterdam. In Flevoland,
the Netherlands' newest state, some of the residents are older than
the land they live on, which was reclaimed in the 1960s. The roads,
commercial centers, and neighborhoods—made affordable to the
masses—are all carefully planned and tidy as can be. This area
offers a fascinating joyride for engineers or anyone else who wants
to appreciate the way the Dutch have confidently grabbed the reins
from Mother Nature.
The most interesting place to understand what the Dutch
have achieved (and what the sea did to deserve it) is the museum
at Schokland. Once a long and skinny island with a few scant
