People and Places: Giethoorn

I couldn’t find much (anything) about the racial make up of Giethoorn, but I think that’s because it’s understood that everyone’s Dutch.

This little Dutch town in the Netherlands is so picturesque and lazy looking. Simply divine! I’d love to visit.

Giethoorn is called the Venice of the Netherlands because about 7.5 km of canals run through the little village. Some 50 little wooden bridges span the canals.

The 13th-century village has rivers and canals instead of streets. At rush hour, about the only traffic you'll encounter is villagers in push boats, taking their sheep out to pasture. Fanfare, a popular Dutch movie, was filmed here in 1958, and the town seems to have modeled itself to reflect the movie's vibrant, friendly spirit: the houses have massive gardens bursting with pink, yellow, and white tulips, and almost everyone sailing by calls out hello.

It was founded around 1230 when fugitives coming from the Mediterranian regions settled there. They found a lot of horns of wild goats there that had probably died in the big flood of St Elisabeth in 1170, and therefore they called the settlement Geytenhorn (horn of goats), later it became Geythorn and now it's called Giethoorn.

All traffic has to go over the water, and it is done in so-called "punters", they are 'whisper-boats' for they are driven by an electric motor, so they practically do not disturb the peace and quiet in this scenic little village. The canal is only about 1 meter deep.

POPULATION 2,500

The water’s brown, but I’m used to the Galveston beaches.