Madurodam (den Hague)

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(posted Oct 13)

When we lived in Germany, and I was around 4-7 years old or so, I went to Madurodam at least twice. My parents took me once and my grandparents took me once. I can see now why I enjoyed it so much. As a kid this place was awesome, but even now it's very impressive.

Madurodam is an outdoor museum that exhibits scale models of many of the most famous/interesting places in the Netherlands. The models are amazing. There are several hundred highly detailed models, including a very impressive model of the airport, some working locks (used to transport watercraft from low- to high- water and vice-versa), and tons of other buildings. As a kid, one of my favorite parts was the moving vehicles: planes, trains, and automobies.... and boats....

Like the automobiles, many of the other models have moving parts, and the trains actually run on a schedule.

It's located in Den Hague (means "the seat"), which is the government seat of The Netherlands. There's not a ton to say about Madurodam, but check out the pictures....

-Joe

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Photos

What size are these?
I know that the Europeans have different shoe sizes than we do, but I'm not sure that these are a standard size....

Kim found her windmill
She'd spent most of the train ride trying to get a good non-blurry shot of a windmill, but it looks like this is a pretty good one.

Candy delivery
The girls (and the kids passing by) really got a kick out of this. There was a place where you insert a 10 cent piece, and this truck would pull out of the candy factory, with a real "freshly made" mini candy bar. I think they each did it two or three times :)

Working locks
Maduordam actually has a set of working locks that go up and down and ships are transported between high- and low-water areas (and vice-versa). It was actually watertight, and ships would pass through.