Benin - Stilt Houses of Ganvié
Foto: The famous harbor of Willemstad (bron: Rita van der Veer)
Netherlands_Antilles - Willemstad is the capital of Curaçao and the former capital of the Netherlands Antilles. The city has about 140,000 inhabitants, making it the largest city in the Lesser Antilles. Due to its "Dutch" architecture, Willemstad is sometimes called the "Amsterdam of the Western Hemisphere." The city is located on the southeastern side of Curaçao, by a natural harbor called Schottegat, which connects to the Caribbean Sea via Sint Annabaai. On either side of Sint Annabaai lie the districts Otrobanda and Punda, connected since 1886 by the Queen Emma Bridge (commonly called the "pontjesbrug" or ferry bridge). Nowadays, most traffic uses the Queen Juliana Bridge. Willemstad was conquered by the Dutch in 1634. The city was named after the later Dutch stadtholder William II of Orange. The area east of Sint Annabaai was called De Punt, in Papiamentu: punta—later corrupted to Punda. In 1635, a fort was built on De Punt to protect the harbor entrance: Fort Amsterdam. It is the oldest fort of the Dutch West India Company on Curaçao. The city arose near the fort. In 1997, the historic city center of Willemstad was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The_island_of_Sint_Maarten
Netherlands_Antilles - Sint Maarten is the smallest island in the world divided between two different nations. St. Martin is French, St. Maarten Dutch. Both countries have cooperated for 350 years in mutual friendship. The border is nearly invisible. People cross without ever ...