Historical Museum

We went to an "Open Air Museum" in Arnhem. They brought old houses from various provinces of the Netherlands and rebuilt them here. They also had demonstrations of life was way back in the day. I think any museuem that's interactive is really cool.

There was a "Holland Rama" which was a 'ride' but actually is a moving set (our seats moved on a platform up, down and around) that takes the audience through the highlights of culture of the Dutch through short video clips and dioramas. Very cool. Too bad for us it was all in Dutch!

Here are some ancient costumes that the Dutch wore.


Bicycles has been a huge part of their history.


Here is an old Dutch house with the thatched roof. They believed the color blue chases away flies.

War Museum

We went to the war museum they have here in Nijmegen. This area saw the largest airbourne offensive in WWII code named Market Garden. On September 17, 1944 the Allied forces began dropping paratroopers, supplies and weapons into various strategic areas here.


The museum is in the shape of a parachute.

It was a tough fight, Arnhem is the location of the movie “A Bridge Too Far” and we were docked right by the bridge that the Allied Forces were trying to take. Unfortunately that part of the campaign was a failure. Only 400 British Airbourn troops got to the bridge but couldn’t hold the bridge. They were overrun after about 4 days.

I didn’t know how close Nijmegen was to the German border. Our tour guide pointed out that across the street was Germany and on the other side it was Netherlands.