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Monnickendam, place with 800 years city rights
The Dutch Buoy, Amsterdam Metropolitan Area

Amsterdam & Region Travel Ticket

The Amsterdam & Region Travel Ticket entitles you to unlimited travel in Amsterdam and its whole region - day and night - on bus, metro and train. This ticket is valid for 1, 2 or 3 calendar days from first check in. A day in this context begins at 0.00 am and ends the next day at 4.00 pm. With this ticket you always check in when boarding and check our getting off the bus or tram. For metro or train you check in and out at the station (platform). 1 day = € 18,50/ 2 days = € 26,00 / 3 days = € 33,50 per person.

Where to buy?

Tourist Information Centre VVV Monnickendam = 2 minutes from The Dutch Buoy or GVB Tickets & Info = at Amsterdam Central Station or NS Tickets & Service = Schiphol Plaza, main hall.   

Bus travel from the Dutch Buoy to Amsterdam: take bus 315 (a 5 minutes`walk to bus stop Swaensborch) to Amsterdam North Metro Station (= a 10 minutes`bus drive) or take bus 316 or 314 (a 8 minutes`walk to bus stop at provincial road N247) to Amsterdam Central Station (= a 18 minutes`bus drive).

Short Origin of Waterland, Region North Amsterdam

Short Origin of Waterland in The Edge of The World, How the North Sea Made Us Who We Are (Michael Pye, 2015):

“Human beings started to quit the North Sea coast in the tenth century and they moved inland to the peat zone. The domes and cushions of peat, standing four meters proud of the bog itself, looked like the terpen, the kind of hillocks which has used as refuges before. A century of drought made the bogs seem almost accessible, and if drought could do that, man could do better. All it took was ditches and canals to drain off the water from the high peat domes to the pools that pockmarked the low bog, and you can dig a ditch with the tools any peasant owns: no new technology required. Once drained, the land could be farmed. All the sodden peat in Waterland, which is just north of Amsterdam, became land for farming in this way. …………The town of Medemblik sat in Waterland on the side of the Almere Lake. It was a transit town for freight coming from the Rhine and heading to the North Sea on its way to Scandinavia and England. ………. The sea broke into the lake and turned it brackish and tidal: what was used to be called the Zuider Zee……….. Between 1100 and 1300 most of the Zuider Zee was lined with dikes to stop the land washing away……… The Dutch already had the reputation for managing water …… “free ground with free people” ….. Peat-mining became an industry: for fuel and breweries from Amsterdam to Antwerp. The towns had ruined the peat grounds with their appetite for fuel and now the fact that the ground was spoiled led to the building of dams and the new towns around them: towns like Amsterdam and Monnickendam.

North of Amsterdam after  the Romans retreated the North Sea areas:
First the Frisians (650-900 CE) developed these peat zones, building on domes and cushions (= terpen) their villages. Using their flat-bottomed boats – look at the picture in front of The Dutch Buoy – to trade and spreading the use of money. Once drained, all sodden peat, became land for farming. Medemblik became transit town for freight from the Rhine to Scandinavia and England.The sea broke into the lake and turned it brackish and tidal: what was used to be called the Zuider Zee.

Then the Vikings (800-1200 CE) came to rob & trade. Between 1100-1300 most of the Zuider Zee was lined with dikes. The Dutch already had the reputation for managing water: “free ground with free people”. Peat-mining became an industry: for fuel and breweries from Amsterdam to Antwerp. The towns had ruined the peat grounds with their appetite for fuel. Now the ground was spoiled led to the building of dams and towns like Amsterdam and Monnickendam.

Then Hansa towns (1250-1550 CE), a cartel between Hamburg, Lubeck, Cologne, York, London and Edinburgh, banded together to keep their ships safe, made sure they were well treated in foreign ports. Around 1550 Hansa towns deteriorated.

Then Amsterdam (1550-1650 CE) became the (physical) stock market for Atlantic & Pacific trade. The golden age of Amsterdam is beginning: the art, the riches, the great fleets and the complex markets in anything from paper, grain, species, slaves. Power became a matter of show and glitz as well as armies and diplomacy, soft power perhaps but essential when a ruler is surrounded by disorderly, independent towns and dependent on big merchant enterprises". 

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