It's not all windmills and wooden shoes. Although in the open air museum in our town you would think so. It is a museum about the villages and their people around the Zuiderzee ("south sea") at the turn of the century( from 1880-1932). There are about 130 dwellings, stores and workshops to visit.

The south sea is now called the IJsselmeer ("ijssellake") because in 1932 a dam was built and there was no open link with the northsea anymore.

The children can dress up in traditional clothing from the small villages round the south sea . Nowadays only a few people still wear this. This are my children dressed in costumes from the village "Volendam" They can also play with some of the old toys.  There is a section of the museum with houses from the former island "Urk" where actors play the role of people from Urk in about 1900. There is a lot to see about how they lived and worked in that time.

You can see some of the pictures I've made in the "Zuiderzee Museum". These Photo gallery is optimized for a 1024X768 resolution. If you have your screensize set to 800X600 or less, click here to see the photo gallery adjusted to smaller screen size.