Madurodam Things to Do

The Gothic Town Hall in Gouda was built in 1448 - 1459, additonally you can see a sandstone scaffold which was added after a complete renovation in 1697. You can set the bells in motion which causes the knights above the balcony to move.

On the square in front of the Town Hall there is a market including a fish stall and a bag seller.
There are still markets here today and you can see the real building on my Gouda page

Is Dam Square always so full of people, stages or scafolding you struggle to get good pictures, well come here to be able to get a decent picture of this bustling square.

The Royal palace is built on 13,659 piles the first being driven into the ground on 1648. It has been the City Hall of Amsterdam for one and a half centuries until such time as King Louis Napoleon furnished it as his palace in 1808 and it has been a palace ever since. Nowdays the palace is used by Queen Beatrix for official receptions and foreign heads of states stay here when visiting. Queen Beatrix has her royal residence in Den Haag. The Royal Palace is open for visitors at various times.

The National monument on Dam Square was erected in 1956 in memory of those who died in World War II. The stone is very porus and had to be restored in 1997, it was a German company who carried out the repairs. Every remembrance day on May 4, Queen Beatrix lays a wreath at its base.

This Basilica has taken a long time to get to its present size, construction started in 1380 but it reached the size it is today 200 years later.
The ground plan of this gothic church is the same as the Cathedral of Amiens with the exception that St Jon's has five naves.

My apologies for not photographing the Basillica but I was fascinated with the moving possession who will move along with the help of your 10c coin

4 more images

It is hard to appreciate the details of something you have never seen or experienced, but as best we can tell from the ones we knew in Amsterdam and den Haag, the models were remarkably precise. So these are most of the pictures we took.

4 more images

Plan to spend at least 2 hours wandering through the layout. A marked path and a numbered brochure help. The more of Holland you have visited or illustrated guides you have read, thr greater your experience will be. Even the living shrubbery and dwarf trees are in scale. Only pieces of most sites are reproduced and the vistas are rarely continuous unlike the real situation. If there are children with you, it is hard to guess how they will enjoy the experience. It depends upn their age and background knowledge and curiosity. We do not think Madurodam would be much fun in inclement weather (or in the bitter cold of winter), so factor weather into your plans.

4 more images

Madurodam is a miniature city located in Scheveningen not far from The Hague.

It is a miniature town of Dutch buildings and landmarks and everything is perfectly replicated on a 1:25 scale.

Madurodam is a miniature city
located between Scheveningen
and The Hague, Netherlands.
It is a model of a Dutch town on
a 1:25 scale, composed of typical
Dutch buildings and landmarks
as are found at various locations
in the country.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This major Dutch tourist attraction was built in 1952 and has
been visited by tens of millions of visitors since then.

The miniature city was named after George Maduro, a student
from Curaçao who died at Dachau concentration camp in 1945
and whose parents donated the money to start the
Madurodam project.

On 2 July 1952, teenaged princess Beatrix was appointed mayor
of Madurodam, after which she was given a tour of her town.

When Beatrix became queen of the Netherlands, she lay down
this function. Today, the mayor of Madurodam is elected by a
youth municipal council consisting of 25 pupils from schools
in the region.

Opening Hours:

1 Sept. - 22 March 09.00 - 18.00 hrs.

23 March - 30 June 09.00 - 20.00 hrs.

1 July - 31 August 09.00 - 22.00 hrs.

1 Sept. - 31 December 09.00 - 18.00 hrs.

Throughout the year, there are spaecial exhibitions in Madurodam. I had the chance to see one about indonesian miniature buildings from the early 20th century. They were used to show the different building types of the tribes and ethnical groups in Indonesia. The houses of Toraja (Sulawesi) remind me of early childhood memories (I spent half a year in Indonesia when I was five years old).