Our Day at the Zuiderzeemuseum

Yesterday we visited a town called Enkhuizen (ank-hous-en) in Holland to see an open air museum (similar to your local pioneer village) called the Zuiderzeemuseum (z-ider-zay-museum).  Enkhuizen was one of the most important harbour cities of the Netherlands in the mid-17th century.  But as the harbours silted up, it lost it's top spot to Amsterdam.  

The Zuiderzee Museum was created in 1948 as a way to teach people about the fishing culture around the former Zuiderzee. The Zuiderzee was cut off from the North Sea in 1932 and it became an inland sea.  To preserve the cultural heritage, 130 historical buildings were preserved in the open-air section of the museum.  The insides have been preserved - there's a carpenter's house, a fisherman - you can see the furniture they would have used.  It was fairly ornate - but the houses were very small.  Most of them had an indoor well just inside the door.  The floors were wood.  And they had lovely gardens.  Some of the buildings contained modern art installations.