4BR keeps on its weird and wonderful trip around Europe ahead of the 'big one' in Stavanger on the weekend.
Now that you know a little more about the Scots, Welsh, Swiss, Belgians and Swedes, it's the turn of those lovely exponents of free love and total football — the Dutch...
The Dutch
1. The Netherlands has built about 800 miles of massive dikes and sea walls to hold back the sea.
2. Famous Netherlanders include painters (although it is not known what their decorating skills were like) Hieronymus Bosch, Vincent van Goch and Rembrandt, as well as philosopher Baruch Spinoza.
The country can also lay claim to the inventor of the sawmill, Cornelius Corneliszoon and the only European statesman and Governor of New Amsterdam,(later New York) who had a brand of cigarette named after him – Peter Stuyvesant.
One of the countries most famous fables is about a boy who suffered from the hallucinogenic effects of eating too much cheese4BR
3. One of the countries most famous fables is about a boy who suffered from the hallucinogenic effects of eating too much cheese.
Years before the effects of marijuana and those funny cakes you get in some coffee shops in Amsterdam, young Kees van Bommel’s story of eating too much Edam and being away with the fairies as a result is still told to this day to frighten the kids…
4. 30 years after he didn’t play for his country at the 1978 World Cup Finals, Johan Cruyff revealed that the reason was not that he was fed up with the coach, his fellow players, or as a political gesture against the Argentinean ruling junta.
A few months prior trip he and his family were held hostage at gunpoint at his home in Barcelona, and after that he decided that playing international football was no longer the most important aspect of his life. He never played for his country again…
5. Areas located in the north and west of the Netherlands lie less than 1 m (3.2 ft) above sea level, whilst in the so called "High Netherlands" in the south and east, the land reaches the Himalayan heights of 322.5 m (1,057.8 ft) at its highest point. Approximately a third of the entire country lies below sea level at high tide.
6. Mata Hari was born Margaretha G. Zelle, in Leeuwarden, Friesland in 1876. She was executed for espionage in 1917.
7. In 1995 the Dutch company ING bought Barings Bank for one English pound (along with its debts of £660m). This purchase was made after Nick Leeson, the famous rogue trader, speculated on the Tokyo stock market, losing millions of pounds and sending Barings to the verge of bankruptcy
8. Tulips do not come from Amsterdam. Both the flower and its name originated in the Ottoman Empire. The flower is indigenous to Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey and other parts of Central Asia.
9. Amsterdam has over 1 million bikes but only 700.000 people who are living there.
10. The first professional manager of the famous Ajax Amsterdam football team was in fact an Irishman called Jack Kirwan.
He played as an outside-left for Chelsea, Everton and Spurs, winning the FA Cup in 1901 before popping over to become manager of the fledgling club that went on to win 4 European Cups.
