Church in Beemster
Beemster is a municipality in the north of Amsterdam. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site which showcases the Netherlands’ expertise in controlling the water. Beemster isn’t built on dry land, but it was reclaimed from the sea. Beemster is the first polder which was recovered from the sea. A polder is a piece of land which was reclaimed from the sea by pumping the water out of it. The pumping was done by windmills for which the Netherlands became famous for. It was impressive to know that the Beemster was reclaimed in the 1600s. I found this to be amazing since I only associated land reclamation to the more recent era.
Beemster Church Facade
We arrived in Middenbeemster, which I took to be the main town of the area. It was a small but attractive town. We immediately proceeded to park. I wasn’t sure what to see here in this town but I remember seeing a tourist office on our way in the town. We immediately head there and managed to get a hold of a few maps to help us with our exploration of the place. What is probably immediately noticeable here is that there is a lot of water here. Canals flow through the entire Beemster making it a very attractive place to visit.
[xmlgm {http://www.worldwanderings.net/kml/Beemster.kmz} zoom=19]