Giethoorn has been called the Venice of the Netherlands, and it shares a key characteristic—it’s not just a canal city, but one with streets of water and without roads upon which cars might travel. Garbage trucks are efficient, but in Giethoorn the trash leaves on boats because there is nowhere for the truck to drive.
Of course, that means that Giethoorn is very picturesque. Humans generally find the young of any species cute; I think we are also programmed to think that streets of water are charming. So Giethoorn is very popular with tourists, and I wondered, before visiting, what I would find. Would it be just an Instagram location, or was there something more interesting about it than the novelty of the canals?
Areas outside the center are paved, but a line of businesses forms a visual barrier. From the parking lot where we arrived, you can’t see the canals. Crossing between the buildings, you’ll find yourself on the Binnenpad, the walking path that runs alongside the main canal. And once you’ve made this crossing to the historic center, the scenic canal village is all you can see.
Canal tours are popular, and ours was a first introduction to the history and culture of Giethoorn. Many visitors also rent “whisper boats”, but we observed that not all are competent drivers.
In biology, parallel evolution is when two similar-looking organisms evolve into a pair of similar-looking organisms. Start in kind of the same place, follow the same path, end up in kind of the same place. In convergent evolution, species arrive at a similar form by very different roads. It’s not surprising to find that Giethoorn is called the Dutch Venice, or Venice of the Netherlands—the nickname kind of leaps out at you. What is surprising and interesting is how dissimilar their histories are. Giethoorn took a very different route to becoming a tourist attraction.
Venice was founded by refugees from war. Giethoorn was founded by religious pilgrims; flagellants who arrived from Italy in the 13th century. The canal system of Venice began as natural waterways connecting its 100+ islands. But the canals of Giethoorn were formed by peat extraction from the surrounding wetlands beginning around the 15th century.
Peat extraction also formed the Bovenwijde. The water in this large lake fills the space left behind when the peat was removed. It’s popular for recreation with the locals as well as the tourists, and like the canals, it is not deep. It’s about 3 feet everywhere, and it was quite odd to see a few teens standing waist-deep next to boats in this wide expanse of lake!
Venice was rich and influential, a maritime powerhouse. Peat farming, on the other hand, is not a path to wealth. As the peat industry faded in the 19th century, fishing, farming, and agriculture took over as sources of income; none of these were a source of local riches.
Reed farming and dairy were particularly important, and influenced what we see in Giethoorn today. The reeds might be obvious, as every house in the historic center has a thatched roof.
But the characteristic high bridges allowed livestock and hay to be moved through the canals. The Giethoorn Museum’s image collection has several interesting pictures of cows standing calmly in small punters as they traverse the waterways.
After our canal tour, we visited the Giethoorn Museum, ‘t Olde Maat Huus. The modern brick entrance attaches to an original farmhouse of Giethoorn, restored to create dioramas of daily living.
An understory houses a more traditional museum exhibit, focused on the history of Giethoorn and artifacts from its agricultural heyday.
The transition to tourism began in the late 19th century when the painters arrived. As they took their paintings to sell elsewhere, awareness of the village began to grow among artists and their friends. Eventually, this was sufficient to draw tourists, especially those interested in the artists.
In the 1950s, the Dutch comedy Fanfare was set and filmed entirely within Giethoorn. It was this widespread exposure that put Giethoorn firmly on the map as a tourist attraction.
Today, Venice and Giethoorn have tourism (and overtourism) in common, and many locals support the tourist industry. Houses along the canal routes are subject to regulations to “keep up appearances”. (Many of the gardens are quite beautiful; I’m not sure what else is on the list.) Tour guides remind you that people actually live in those houses, and peering in the windows is rude. As is using the furniture in people’s private gardens to consume your picnic lunch.
After our visit to the museum and the nearby Mennonite church, Dad and I enjoyed a nice lunch at a cafe by the side of the Binnenpad.
There’s definitely more to Giethoorn than a chance to take beautiful pictures. But how long you should spend depends on what you want to do. Our day tour of about 3-4 hours left us enough time for the canal tour, a visit to the museum, the church, and lunch. But while I didn’t regret our choice of activities, I would have loved more time to explore the canals and scenery on foot. Or even to sit in this lovely setting with a book for a few hours.
