Spider-man with his pants down
In the recent movie Spider-man: Far From Home, the superhero at some point gets his ass kicked while he is travelling through Europe and falls unconscious in a train. When he wakes up he finds himself in a police cell in the Netherlands, more specifically in a small town called Broek-op-Langedijk. The first things he notices is the friendliness of his cellmates, not to mention the police officer in charge who barely lifts a finger when he escapes his cell. When he runs out of the police station, the town of Broek-op-Lange-Dijk looks like a village from hundred years ago with straw on the road, chickens and goats running around and a market where farmers sell eggs and cheese. Luckily one of the market salesman has a mobile phone for Peter so he can be airlifted minutes later from a lovely tulip field overseen by a windmill. But not before he manages to step in goat poop that his spider sense somehow ignored to warn him for.
It all looks wonderful. You would want to visit this place and drown yourself in dutchness. Unfortunately if you would head off to Broek-Lange-dijk you would not recognize anything of this at all. The whole scene was shot in the Czech Republic and the only reason why the producers picked Broek-op-Langedijk seems to be the rather funny name, which literally translates to pants on a long dike by the way.
Now this is not to say that there is nothing worthwhile to see in Broek-op-Langedijk. In fact it has a very interesting museum which can easily entertain you for half a day if not longer. The museum and it’s guides (who are very entertaining although not so political correct) explains the history of the town which was famous for having the first floating vegetable auction in the world.
The local vegetable producers who produced primarily for the city of Amsterdam, grew tired of bringing their produce to the merchants who were able to negotiate lower prices with individual farmers so they build an auction building in 1887. The auction brought together farmers and merchants and improved the transparency dramatically, thus the farmers could get higher prices for their cabbages. Interestingly the auction itself evolved from an open space to a roofed building and eventually it was built over the water on poles. The reason for this was that farmers could bring their vegetables directly to the auction by boat. The batch was presented to the buyers on a boat called a Kloet where bidding would begin. Visitors who are interested in buying some fresh produce can do so in a real auction
The answer to why people would ship their vegetables in a boat rather than a car for an auction around the corner lies in the landscape of Broek-op-Langedijk, which nickname is land of thousand islands. Back in the thirteenth century during an epidemic the local farmers dug out small canals to quarantine their pigs. The fertile silt was thrown on the bordering pastures thus creating a network of islands highly suitable for growing crops.
The once more than 15000 fields have reduced to a mere 250 islands and some of them have a residential purpose now. But the remaining islands are protected area now with unique nature and birds nesting on the land once used for growing cabbage. The museum ticket includes a boat ride through the canals or else rent a bike or just walk through the magical rijk that was created by man.
Though you won’t find superheroes in Broek op Langedijk, there is a villain. The north American crayfish has invaded the area and without natural enemies it builds expansive tunnels and eats the reed unchallenged. This causes the banks of the islands to become instable and collapse eventually. Spider-man should have stayed a little longer.
