The Dutch homes I posted yesterday were identified by pom as being of the town of Giethoorn, the "Venice of the North," where there are no roads - just canals and bicycle paths.
That clue led me to another photoset, which included the photo above.
Take notice that there is no doorknob, it is said that in old times the front door was opened only twice: the first time when the occupant married and the last time when his body was brought outside after his death.I'm curious - without a doorknob, how does one open the door - or is this just a symbolic door and there is a separate functional one elsewhere.
Some 50 little wooden bridges span the canals. It was founded around 1230 when fugitives coming from the Mediterranian regions settled there. They found a lot of horns of wild goats there that had probably died in the big flood of St Elisabeth in 1170, and therefore they called the settlement Geytenhorn (horn of goats), later it became Geythorn and now it's called Giethoorn...More history and good pix at the link.
The Dutch used only the back door.
ReplyDeleteAnd, this is a tourist attraction for us as well - it looks very cute but there's sixteen million of us living on land one fifth the size of Minnesota. So most of our houses are considerably smaller :-)
All Saints' flood (Allerheiligenvloed)
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