May 30th 2019
Today we went for a stroll in the old city. Enkhuizen is a city with beautiful old architecture and a rich history. It used to be the fourth biggest city of the Netherlands thanks to its importance for the the VOC, The Dutch East India Trading Company. A lot of street names and buildings are reminders of the Golden Age when the Netherlands was one of the important naval countries, dominating the high seas. Enkhuizen was also the residence of Jan Huygen. Here revered as a hero, others could argue Jan Huygen was nothing more than a common thief who stole the sea maps of the Portuguese and passed that knowledge on to the Dutch and the English. Without this theft the Netherlands wouldn’t have become such a powerful maritime state and the VOC probably wouldn’t have existed. Funny that what is nothing more than industrial espionage now is remembered like an act of bravery.