About The Netherlands

Think the Netherlands and immediately all the cliches pop up: windmills, tulips, bicycles, canal houses, Rembrandt, and the red-light district for some. And last but not least, our semi-legal cannabis culture. It is all true but there is so much more to experience if you visit this flat country! 

You won’t be able to appreciate the Lowlands if you don’t go beyond the postcard cliches. There’s magnificent nature (20 national parks!), small medieval towns, old fortresses, prehistoric tombs and relics of the Roman Empire, and so much more.

There’s its people: the notoriously direct, down-to-earth (how close can you get) but extremely friendly Dutch who are a delight to interact with. How do you get to know these somewhat reserved ‘Dutchies’, who seem always busy and, in a hurry, when you are only visiting the country for a couple of days? 

The obvious answer is to stay a bit longer and mingle - English is widely spoken making striking up conversations easier!

The history of the Netherlands is permeated with water: conquering the water inland, roving the oceans and discovering new continents, trading with exotic destinations from the 16^th century onwards, fighting battles at sea with the English, Spanish, Portuguese and French in the 17^th and 18^th century. 

Most museums will show you all or part of this history in paintings, sculptures or relics.

This long tradition in dealing with water also translates itself into the Netherlands being one of the largest superyacht shipbuilding nations in the world particularly of bespoke custom one-off designs. Feadship, Heesen, Moonen, Royal Huisman, Oceanco, Amels Damen with a complete marine support industry are synonymous in the Superyacht industry with the Netherlands.

These ultra-high-end yachts are the combination of bespoke design, exquisite craftsmanship, high-tech innovation and state of the art shipyard facilities. Each yacht is a result of a superb knowledgeable team working together to create, build and translate an owner’s dream vision into reality, producing this highly developed marine industry the Netherlands are renown for.

You get the best of two worlds here, the learned experience through its maritime history and the forward thinking innovation of the future of yacht design working with environmental and sustainable marine solutions. 

So it comes as no surprise that Amsterdam hosts METSTRADE annually in November, the largest trade exhibition for the international marine industry.