So we stayed the night at Maaike’s lovely Aunt Jessie and they took us to a nearby UNESCO site – called Pampus. Well, it’s part of a massive UNESCO Site – The defence line of Amsterdam. It’s a 135km long line of forts (built in 1880-1920) – and they could flood the area around Amsterdam (to a depth of ~30cm) so that vehicles and men couldn’t get attack the city.

Course, as soon as they built it – modern warfare basically made it obsolete, but still, it’s a pretty impressive feat of engineering.

We went to the fort of Pampus. Took us a while as the bridge was out. Hopping over was quite tricky.

The fort itself is on a man-made island. It was never actually attacked, but it was an impressive place to look around. They’re really gearing up for tourists at the moment – and unfortunately the guide was in Dutch (or German?!) – but they did have an English printed guide – so I was able to wander around quite happily.

Here’s a picture of the entrance, and the covered walkway (so grenades couldn’t hit you!)

It was quite interesting seeing how the island was designed – basically they were expecting to be attacked from certain directions – so most of the defences (and thickness of walls) was dependant on that. There was the ‘keyhole’ passage which ran around the front of the island – walls of about 15m? of concrete. Or something…

The boat ride there and back was on the IJsselmeer which is a 1100km squared lake which the Dutch created in 1932. They really do know a thing or three about all things hydro in this country. Still, they’d want to with a rising sea level, and an average height above sea level of – oh – 3m? maybe? ;)

We also went to Teylers museum which is the oldest museum in The Netherlands.. Teyler was a cloth merchant and banker – and left his fortune for the advancement of science, religion and art.

The museum has been left as it would have looked in the 18th century. This means that the fossils etc. are arranged & grouped as they were understood at the time.

The image below is of Martinus Van Marum’s large electrostatic generator (built by John Cuthbertson). The two large disks (1.65m in diameter) were rotated by a crank. These rub against friction pads which build up charge which is then transported to conductors.

It produced a spark of 61cm – which implies a voltage of 330,000 Volts!

There were also lots of paintings – and they were also arranged in the style of the time. If you look at these sets of pictures you’ll see that they’re symmetrical in layout and the large paintings in the bottom left and right corners are opposites of each other (winter and summer, and stormy and calm)

But finally it was time to leave The Netherlands and head to Oslo. It was lovely to be brought to the airport by Maaike’s Aunt and cousins. They just wanted to make sure we actually left see us off safely.

Thanks Jessie, Inge, Geke, and Toon :)