When people come here they usually go to Amsterdam, the capital, or for other "typical" Dutch stuff. But anyone here can tell you that Amsterdam or the area around the coastal area (the Randstad) is absolutely not representative to the rest of the country. Yes, Amsterdam has canals, it has drugs, it has the red light district, and there's lots of windmills and rivers and flat land in the Randstad. But I haven't seen anything like that anywhere else, and not around here either.
Just to give you an idea: I live a whopping 15 m above sea level in Eindhoven (the place where Philips was founded) in the province of Brabant (the Netherlands has 12 provinces), in the south east, about 20 km from the Belgian border. The nearest river is Eindhoven's "pride" called the Dommel, and it's about 10 m wide
The nearest dyke is the one along the Maas which is over 30 km away. There's some windmills but there's far more watermills around here (because there's quite a few small streams, such as the Dommel). There's some canals but they're mostly in rural areas and they were built for transport by ships around 1900. One thing that is the same in the Netherlands though, wherever you go, is that it's generally flat and low. The highest point in the Netherlands, the Vaalserberg, only 25 m from the point where the Netherlands joins with Belgium and Germany in the far south, towers at a measly 322,5 m.
BTW, CJ, you live in Bergen op Zoom don't you?
