The Netherlands - Part 2 Great Continental Railway Journeys


The Netherlands - Part 2

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I'm embarking on a new railway adventure that will take

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me across the heart of Europe.

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I'll be using this, my Bradshaw's Continental Railway Guide,

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dated 1913, which opened up an exotic world of foreign

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travel for the British tourist.

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It told travellers where to go, what to see, and how to navigate

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the thousands of miles of tracks criss-crossing the Continent.

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Now a century later I'm using my copy to reveal an

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era of great optimism and energy, where technology, industry,

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science and the arts were flourishing.

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I want to rediscover that lost Europe,

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that in 1913 couldn't know that its

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way of life would shortly be swept aside by the advent of war.

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TRAIN SPEEDS PAST

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I'm continuing a tour of the Netherlands,

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following my 1913 guide.

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I began in Rotterdam and have travelled to the nation's

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political centre, The Hague.

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From there my route continues north-east towards the historic

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town of Haarlem, before reaching the metropolis of Amsterdam.

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I'll finish my journey in the geographical heart of the country, Utrecht.

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Along the way, I root around the world's largest flower auction...

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Tell me there are some rules here, right?

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There are some rules of the road, are there?

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Well, they say they have traffic rules.

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'..discover the story of the Dutch Golden Age...'

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Amsterdam was the Dubai of the 17th century.

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'..and tackle a fusion banquet from the age of Empire.'

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-Oh.

-OK.

-HE CLAPS

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-There you go.

-Thank you.

-Enjoy.

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THEY LAUGH

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My next stop will be Haarlem.

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The guidebook says that it's "a pleasant, clean,

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"thriving town, the centre of a famous horticultural district,

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"whence bulbs, hyacinths, tulips, crocuses,

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"lilies etc are exported all over Europe."

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The Dutch really are mad about their blooms.

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Flower-potty.

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This is Holland's bulb belt, and since the early 20th century

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it's been the hub of the global flower trade.

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This handsome Art Nouveau railway station, decorated with tiles,

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opened in 1908.

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Haarlem to me has been a wonderful surprise.

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Full of these tiny streets with brick-built gabled houses.

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Really pretty.

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One of the chief attractions of the Netherlands for tourists

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in 1913 was its picture galleries, full of works by old Dutch masters.

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In the Golden Age, it wasn't just the Dutch economy that flourished.

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Riches flowed into culture, particularly painting.

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Bradshaw's tells me most of the larger towns possess valuable

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collections of paintings.

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Including some of world renown.

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Here in Haarlem there's a painting with a story to tell,

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of the pitfalls of rampant capitalism.

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In recent history we experienced the dot-com boom.

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Frantic speculation in an item until a bubble was created,

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and when it burst it brought bankruptcy to many.

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Well, in 17th-century Holland,

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a similar thing happened and the commodity involved was tulip bulbs.

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The painter, Jan Brueghel the Younger,

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satirises the speculators as brainless monkeys.

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And here, in the boom times,

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a tulip appears to be worth as much as a bag of gold.

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But then the crash comes.

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And here is a ruined monkey clutching a worthless share

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certificate, urinating on the tulips that brought his downfall.

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From riches to rags.

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A morality tale.

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Despite the crash, the flower industry continued to blossom.

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In the year before my guide book was published, dedicated auction houses

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were set up in nearby Aalsmeer to cope with the growing trade.

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But today it's no monkey business.

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HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

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I find myself in the middle of a flower auction here.

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They're selling hortensias and viburnums and tulips.

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It's a Dutch auction, so the price begins high and falls,

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and you bid as it falls.

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Speed is of the essence.

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In as little as ten days these blooms will be worthless.

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Timing is everything.

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Wait too long to bid and you run the risk of losing out entirely.

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But the whole thing here takes only about a second.

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And I'm sitting here kind of terrified that if I touch my mouse

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I'll end up with a whole bunch of flowers.

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The purchased flowers immediately make their way to their new

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owners via the distribution area.

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I think this is the biggest building I've ever been in in my life.

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It's like several huge railway stations put together.

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And I say that because I'm looking down on lots of flower trains,

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but whereas at a station they'd run in parallel lines,

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here they're crossing each other, higgledy-piggledy.

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It looks like chaos.

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And it's very impressive.

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Amazingly, this complex has a footprint roughly the size of

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the Principality of Monaco.

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-Hello!

-Good morning!

-Good morning! I'm Michael.

-Hi. I'm Josie.

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'Josie is going to help me to find my way out.'

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Tell me there are some rules here, right? There are some rules of the road, are there?

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Well, they say they have traffic rules.

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Sometimes I'm doubtful about them.

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This is such fun.

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Obviously I'm amazed by the size of the building.

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What is the scale of this operation?

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Every day we auction off 21 million stacks of flowers

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and two million potted plants.

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And, as you can see, quite a hectic business.

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From here flowers are exported across the globe.

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Everything what you see here,

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85% is leaving our border before midnight.

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'Meaning that a bunch of roses can go from soil to

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'a sitting room as far away as New York City in just 48 hours.'

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-Oh!

-Oh, you made it!

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MICHAEL LAUGHS

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-Ah, thank you.

-You're welcome.

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The whole operation is flourishing.

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My journey continues towards Amsterdam,

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following the route of the first railway line in the Netherlands.

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Opened in September 1839,

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this nearly ten-mile stretch of track proved that it was possible

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to construct railways in this marshy terrain.

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Unlike many early railways,

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this line was built specifically for passengers rather than freight.

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For the Dutch, masters of the waters,

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cargo would continue to arrive in Amsterdam by ship.

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I shall soon be in Amsterdam.

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The guide book tells me that it's situated at the confluence of the Rivers Amstel and Wye.

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That it's the commercial capital of Holland.

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Most of the Dutch colonial produce is dealt with in Amsterdam.

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With colonial and trading interests that encompassed present-day Indonesia,

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Connecticut and New York City,

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which was once known as New Amsterdam, in a Golden Age,

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the riches that flowed into Old Amsterdam were without compare.

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And the magnificent Amsterdam Centraal Station celebrates

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that imperial power.

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From the outset the Dutch railway network was funded by the

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huge revenues generated by the country's Empire.

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I've made my way to the city's canal rig, to meet history

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professor Geert Janssen from the University of Amsterdam.

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-Hello, Geert.

-Hi, Michael.

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-Wonderful location.

-It's beautiful, yeah.

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We're meeting in the very heart of the old city.

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what was attracting tourists to Amsterdam 100 years ago, do you think?

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I think 100 years ago people came to Amsterdam to enjoy and

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to appreciate the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century.

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Amsterdam didn't get a typical 19th-century facelift

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that was typical of London and Paris in this period,

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so in Amsterdam you could still see and enjoy

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a city that had kept its 17th-century character.

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What can Amsterdam have been like at the height of the Golden Age?

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It's the Dubai of the 17th century.

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Amsterdam attracted a variety of different people from all over Europe.

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A great number of what we would call labour migrants from the

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German Empire, from France, from the British Isles,

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as well as religious refugees,

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so people who had been persecuted elsewhere in Europe who were

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attracted to the Dutch Republic for its religious tolerance as well

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as Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews from the Iberian peninsula

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and Eastern Europe,

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so it was very much a mixed and cosmopolitan city at the time.

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Same old story. MICHAEL LAUGHS

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Yeah, it is.

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I look forward to exploring this cosmopolitan capital tomorrow,

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using the eyes of yesterday's tourist.

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The canals of Amsterdam are delightfully free from

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tourists at this time of the morning, and indeed the Doolin Hotel

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was advertised in Bradshaw's as being "free from tram noise."

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I'm tucking into a Dutch breakfast of poffertjes.

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Little thick pancakes served with - wait for it -

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butter and powdered sugar.

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And here at the Doolin they're served with sparkling wine.

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Another reason why this place might have been popular 100 years ago.

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By 1913, Amsterdam had been the hub of

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a global trading network for four centuries.

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And this area, De Wallen, is still the centre for age-old transactions.

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The Oude Kerk, or Old Church,

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according to Bradshaw's dates back to 1300.

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But these are windows not into men's souls,

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but rather to display ladies of the night.

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And I'm interested to know how it is that this bastion,

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first of Catholicism and then of Protestantism, is co-located with

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what is now probably the world's most famous red-light district.

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De Wallen once straddled Amsterdam's busy shipping port.

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The port has since moved, but prostitution hasn't.

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And today the oldest profession is legal.

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For many modern tourists, Amsterdam's red-light district

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confirms its reputation as both sin city and progressive utopia.

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I'm having a coffee with Annemarie de Wildt,

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curator of the Amsterdam Museum...

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-Hello, Annemarie.

-Hello.

-I'm Michael.

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..to find out how this curious state of affairs came about.

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-So, here we are. The church, red-light district...

-Yeah.

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-..and kindergarten.

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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I mean, some people would say, "Only in Amsterdam."

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Yeah, it's a good spot to talk about the famous tolerance of Amsterdam,

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and the fact that we are able to have these very different

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things coexist right next to each other.

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Now, the Bradshaw traveller, coming here in 1913,

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what legal position would he have found?

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Prostitution was officially forbidden but, of course,

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a harbour city like Amsterdam,

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it's very difficult to ban it altogether, so it did exist.

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There were officially no brothels, but he would have found maybe

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women standing on the streets soliciting, or brothels

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that were sort of in hiding, like a tobacco shop for instance.

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In the 1960s, this started to change.

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It became as open as it is now,

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with women sitting in the windows.

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In the decades following the sexual revolution of the 1960s,

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the Dutch experimented with a policy known as gedogen, or tolerance.

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Whilst still illegal, prostitution, like cannabis,

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was officially tolerated.

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Apparently, prostitution is legalised today in the Netherlands.

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-Yes.

-When did that change occur?

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Well, the change only occurred in 2000.

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People are always very surprised about it

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and after years and years and years of discussion,

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the idea was, let's make rules, let's make regulations,

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let's try and ban out the criminality

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and see if we can make it into a normal job.

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Is the legalisation controversial today?

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It is a difficult subject.

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There is still trafficking, there is still forced prostitution,

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so now the city authorities, here and in other cities,

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are trying to, not to get rid of it altogether,

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but at least to make it smaller.

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I'm leaving the red-light district

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to explore the streets of south Amsterdam.

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The biggest risk to life in the Netherlands is crossing the road.

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Whoa!

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First of all, there's a cycle lane.

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Then there's two tracks of trams.

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Four lanes of regular traffic

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and then...don't forget, there's another cycle lane.

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Made it.

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One 19th-century invention, the railways,

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still flourishes today.

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Another 19th-century invention dominates the transport scene

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in the Netherlands, even in the 21st century.

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For which I will need some Dutch courage.

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A park, a sunny day, a bicycle.

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I haven't done anything this healthy in years.

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In the Indies Neighbourhood in eastern Amsterdam,

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many of the streets are named after the islands

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of the Dutch East Indies, most of the present-day Indonesia.

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That colony generated vast wealth

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and one of the world's first fusion cuisines.

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Thank you very much.

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Sir, see.

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This is our speciality rijsttafel.

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-I'll have the rijsttafel, please.

-OK.

-Thank you very much.

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Literally translated, rijsttafel means rice table.

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Sounds like a simple enough meal.

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All right, good, there we go.

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Ah!

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OK. There we go. Please.

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-Thank you.

-Enjoy it.

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Invented by the Dutch during their 350-year rule over Indonesia,

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this feast combined local cuisine with a taste of home

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and was designed to showcase the exotic abundance of the Empire.

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I have never seen such a variety of food

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and all of it fresh and delicious and brilliant ingredients.

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I've got rices, I've got noodles, I've got soup,

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I've got an omelette, I've got fish, a banana, beef,

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beans, fresh vegetables, a kind of poppadom, nuts.

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Oh! Delicious.

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By 1913, Dutch tourists to the colonies had experienced this

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Indo-Dutch cuisine first-hand and had imported it to the Netherlands.

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And so an Edwardian traveller following my guidebook might

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well have enjoyed a rijsttafel, too.

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-Ah, chef.

-Hello, sir.

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-Congratulations.

-Are you enjoying the rijsttafel?

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I am enjoying it very much indeed.

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If you don't finish it, it will be an insult for us.

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-Oh, my goodness.

-So...

-I'll report back in about two hours.

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OK, we'll see you then with dessert.

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-No, please.

-Thank you.

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Please, no-one offer me a wafer-thin mint.

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I'm on the final leg of my tour of the Netherlands,

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making my way south-east to the smallest Dutch province.

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Thank you.

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'And the centre of the country.'

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My last stop will be Utrecht.

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The guidebook tells me that the River Rhine here separates

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into two streams, a Roman city and a very old place.

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This brings me to the heart of the country,

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to the hub of the railway network and, due to a treaty signed in 1579,

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maybe to the origin of the Netherlands.

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Thanks to its location,

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Utrecht became the main hub of the Dutch railway network.

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Today, its Centraal station is the busiest in the country.

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More than 900 trains depart here everyday,

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carrying nearly 200,000 passengers.

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And they're preparing for it to get even busier.

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Increasing capacity to cope with a predicted

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100 million rail users a year by 2020.

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Everywhere around me, there's crashing and banging and drilling.

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Building works everywhere.

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And I think, just now, the finishing touches are being put to it.

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In 1913, though, Utrecht was a quiet place.

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Bradshaw's talks of a pleasant city with promenades bordered by streams.

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But over 300 years earlier,

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it had been at the centre of a military alliance,

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formed between the very different Dutch provinces

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to resist their Spanish ruler.

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Called the Union Of Utrecht,

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it led to the formation of the Dutch Republic,

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with a parliament at the Hague, and ushered in the Golden Age.

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At the Cathedral of St Martin, known as the Dom,

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I've arranged to meet historian Professor Maarten Prak...

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-Hello, Maarten.

-Michael, how nice to meet you here.

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..to find out more about that seminal moment in the formation

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of the modern-day Netherlands.

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Maarten, what is the significance for Dutch history of this

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medieval chapel?

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It was the place where, in January 1579,

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a group of people put together and subsequently signed a document,

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the Union of Utrecht,

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that later came to be seen as the first constitution.

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The foundational documents of the Netherlands.

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Who participated, then, in signing this document?

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Provinces, individual nobles, representatives of various towns,

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a hodgepodge of people who were involved in a rebellion against the

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King of Spain, who was the sovereign of this country at the time.

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To cooperate militarily,

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those disparate rebels had first to agree their differences.

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There are two points in that document that were significant.

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One was that they insisted on continuing

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their local and regional autonomy.

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As a result, the Dutch Republic

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was a very disunited sort of country.

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A Federation.

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The other thing was that they decided to set up a religious order,

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but at the same time ruled that each inhabitant privately

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could believe what he or she wished to believe.

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So religious toleration is virtually in the Dutch DNA.

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Is there a connection with the tolerance today

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of drugs and prostitution?

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I think there is.

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In the sense that from the very early days,

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the Dutch learned to live with diversity.

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And the whole idea of the Union of Utrecht,

0:23:440:23:47

and its article on religion, was that Catholics were a fact of life.

0:23:470:23:52

You couldn't move them somewhere else.

0:23:520:23:55

And the same is true for prostitution or drugs in

0:23:550:23:58

modern society.

0:23:580:23:59

You can't do away with it, so you have to deal with it.

0:23:590:24:03

This, I think, is what is known as...

0:24:030:24:06

Well, perhaps Dutch pragmatism.

0:24:060:24:08

It's not so much a principle, but it is a practice.

0:24:080:24:12

But what does pragmatism in practice look like?

0:24:190:24:23

Bradshaw's had led me to expect a city of handsome houses.

0:24:250:24:29

Following the union of Utrecht, the Netherlands was

0:24:290:24:31

a religiously tolerant place, but still the Catholics thought it

0:24:310:24:35

best to be discreet and to disguise their churches.

0:24:350:24:39

And where better to hide one than in one of the handsome houses?

0:24:390:24:43

And, completely unexpectedly, a gem of a church,

0:24:510:24:55

complete with organ and virgin and Christ, a couple of baroque bishops.

0:24:550:25:01

And a fully licensed bar,

0:25:010:25:03

but I think that was a more recent addition.

0:25:030:25:05

Thank you very much.

0:25:060:25:08

Cheers.

0:25:080:25:09

Cheers to you.

0:25:090:25:10

My Bradshaw's description of the Netherlands draws heavily on

0:25:120:25:15

its long and glorious history.

0:25:150:25:17

A century later, I've arranged to have a drink with some locals

0:25:190:25:23

to gauge how connected modern Dutch identity is to the nation's past.

0:25:230:25:27

And good health to you all.

0:25:290:25:31

-Proost.

-Proost.

-Oh, proost.

0:25:310:25:32

Proost, indeed. Proost, proost, proost, proost, proost.

0:25:320:25:35

Proost!

0:25:350:25:36

100 years ago, this was written.

0:25:370:25:41

"Holland, which was once an extended swamp,

0:25:410:25:43

"presents the picture of a people

0:25:430:25:45

"owing not only their wealth and high commercial position,

0:25:450:25:48

"but even the very land, to their own labour and enterprise."

0:25:480:25:52

Is that a fair assessment of the Dutch?

0:25:520:25:54

I think that's a defining feature of us. Yes.

0:25:540:25:57

We don't necessarily have to like each other,

0:25:570:26:00

but you have to cooperate because it's... In a delta, it's crucial.

0:26:000:26:05

But about this tolerance thing, is it true that the Dutch are tolerant?

0:26:050:26:08

I think there are a lot of different people living in the

0:26:080:26:10

Netherlands and everyone is just being him or herself and, you know,

0:26:100:26:17

it seems normal that there are different people and they feel...

0:26:170:26:21

Are OK with the fact that they have different religions

0:26:210:26:24

or different sexual preferences.

0:26:240:26:29

Tolerant, actually, is not a very nice word.

0:26:290:26:32

Tolerant means you put up with people.

0:26:320:26:34

What about respectful? Are the Dutch respectful?

0:26:340:26:37

Well, I'm not really a Dutch. I'm not really Dutch.

0:26:370:26:40

But, yes, absolutely.

0:26:400:26:42

I don't see tolerance as a nice word.

0:26:420:26:45

I see it as actually,

0:26:450:26:47

"You are strange and weird, but, OK, I'm going to accept that,

0:26:470:26:50

"as long as it doesn't cross my line."

0:26:500:26:52

Yes. And therefore, as an immigrant,

0:26:520:26:54

you are expected to respect their boundaries, too.

0:26:540:26:56

Absolutely. And I think it's just fair.

0:26:560:26:59

Now, marijuana.

0:26:590:27:01

What's going on?

0:27:050:27:06

And is it working?

0:27:070:27:09

That's great, my grandmother is watching.

0:27:090:27:11

But, erm...

0:27:110:27:12

Well, it's not legal in Holland.

0:27:120:27:15

It isn't illegal, either.

0:27:150:27:16

Especially, I hope, they're going to legalise the whole process

0:27:160:27:19

because I think it will cut crime rates.

0:27:190:27:21

And it's good for business, as well. And that's also typical Dutch.

0:27:210:27:24

-That's exactly what it is!

-So true.

0:27:240:27:27

That's the point about marijuana and tolerance.

0:27:270:27:30

-We see an economic benefit in it.

-Yes.

0:27:300:27:32

And I think we found out very early, in the early stages,

0:27:320:27:35

in the 17th century already,

0:27:350:27:37

that these people coming in, if you accept them, be tolerant,

0:27:370:27:40

that brings some economic benefits and we tend to like that.

0:27:400:27:44

So, ladies and gentlemen.

0:27:440:27:45

I give you a toast to Bradshaw's description of the Netherlands.

0:27:450:27:49

-Proost.

-Cheers! Proost!

0:27:490:27:53

You have to be impressed by Dutch history.

0:28:030:28:06

Starting with the Union of Utrecht,

0:28:060:28:08

they got rid of the mighty King of Spain.

0:28:080:28:11

With equal grit,

0:28:110:28:12

they built the dykes and windmills and drained the land.

0:28:120:28:18

A global empire flowered and persecuted religious dissidents

0:28:180:28:23

were attracted to cosmopolitan Amsterdam.

0:28:230:28:27

I'm as impressed by the architecture of that golden age

0:28:270:28:31

as the traveller was 100 years ago.

0:28:310:28:34

With the added feeling that

0:28:340:28:36

I'm visiting our national experiment in tolerance and moderation.

0:28:360:28:41

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