Driving through the otherworldly fishermen’s village of Durgerdam, on the outskirts of Amsterdam, one realizes there's more to the region than cafes and coffee shops. The locale, home to just 500 inhabitants, is located a fifteen-minute drive from Amsterdam. Here, however, the essence of nature reveals its pure form: tranquility reigns, fluffy sheep graze in the meadows,…
The fire department was busy placing sandbags and pumping out water from the flooded areas of Volendam on Sunday. Sandbags have been placed at the well-known Hotel Spaander at the harbor, according to the municipality of Edam-Volendam. Water has also been pumped out of the basement of the hotel. Areas outside the dikes in Volendam, and also in nearby Monnickendam, have suffered from flooding because of the very high water level of the Markermeer. The lake reached its highest water level on Sunday morning.