May 22nd 2019
According to the map there should be an old fortress on the other side of the canal. We thought it might be worth a visit and set out to explore. Fort Edam, as it is called, turned out to be a fortress built at the end of the 19th century as part of the defence line of Amsterdam, a defensive circle of 46 forts and batteries around the capital. The Dutch have always resorted to inundating the land as a defensive measure. And in the past it had worked, for instance against the Spanish army, but that was when armies attacked each other on horseback and dragged heavy cannons with them. Unfortunately they hadn’t heard of airplanes yet when they designed the defensive line in 1880, so after its completion in 1914 it was already outdated.
You might think that we had learned something from this miscalculation, but no. In 1951 the Dutch, still clinging onto the idea of inundation, built the IJssellinie, a line of defence 120 kilometre in length in the east of the Netherlands. Its purpose was to keep out the Russians. Inundation hadn’t worked against airplanes, but who knows, maybe it will work against nuclear missiles! Really, sometimes it is just time to think of something new and kill your darlings.
We joined a tour guide just about to start his tour with a small group. He asked if we all just wanted to hear the highlights or do the full tour, which we all chose. Little did we know that the full tour was a 3 hour long experience in which the story behind every bolt and stone in the fort was revealed in a very enthusiastic and detailed way. The volunteers who run the museum evidently have a lot of love for their work, and are keen to share their knowledge. So when three hours later we emerged in daylight again, we knew all there is to know about Fort Edam. Living there must have been terrible because after just three hours we were chilled to the bone, and needed lots of warm tea to thaw again. While defrosting outside in the sunshine the helpful volunteers were eager to give us advice on what to visit next, and swamped us with brochures and coupons.
Our heads still buzzing with historical facts and pockets full with brochures we went back to our boat to further defrost in the sunshine.