Le Monde - A Poetic Travail » Belgium

Boundaries of Baarle

Nisha — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 19:29:45 +0000

In my last post, I spoke about Baarle and how number 2 is so important for it.

What if I tell you that boundaries between the two countries DO NOT divide the town with a straight line and instead zigzagged all through the town?? Through the roads, through pavements, and ….

Zigzagged white boundaries.

The result is that when you stroll around Baarle, you constantly pass in and out of the two nations ! And the people of Baarle have realized that this oddity has tremendous tourism potential. So they have marked most of the boundaries in the town. The borderlines are mostly done as metal discs or White Crosses on the roadways, sidewalks and walls. Also painted is NL or B to indicate the country.

National boundary cutting through the footpath.

An embossed map of Baarle-Hertog and Baarle-Nassau on a footpath.

So, do you think that with all these markings it would be easy to keep track of which country you’re in ?
Then you are wrong.
As you must have seen in this video, the boundaries can literally divide anything…. roads, pavements and the buildings as well ! For example, just south of the Baarle town center, along the main street, a beer distributor’s premises are split between two countries. Poor guy.

The divided beer shop.

And then there was this bar with a pool table, where the border between Belgium and Netherlands ran right through the middle. The balls made thousands of cross border trips each day.

In fact, it is so confusing that you often don’t know where you are standing ! So how does one decide which country his house belongs to?
Simple rule.
Look at the main door of any house. Position of that door decides the nationality of the owner. And this was the reason why I wanted to visit Baarle !

There is a story that when taxes were increased to a new high in Belgium, many people shifted main doors of their houses to Netherlands ! and when NL raised taxes… no prizes for the right guess. Of course there are stricter laws preventing this from happening now.

Now we can really appreciate the true meaning of the Belgian side in the bar and that makes it quite unique. Doesn’t it ?
Note- Boundaries of Baarle is a part of www.lemonicks.com.

Coming up- Some more border confusions
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Baarle : A short video

Nisha — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 17:25:14 +0000

Before I continue from here to write more about Baarle, here is a short video to give you a clue how interesting this tiny town is.
You can also see the embossed map of previous post in this video.

Continue to read how weird is this town.
P.S.- The video is shot by V when he visited the town with one of his friends.
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Baarle : A unique town in two countries

Nisha — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 07:55:04 +0000

“Hi, why don’t you come over to Belgian side of the bar”. I overheard this sentence a few years back in a small town. Was the speaker joking? His tone was serious enough.

For quite sometime I have been trying to come up with a way to explain this weird town on this earth which I visited a few years back. It is something like ‘a child belonging to two mothers’. And none of them is a step mother.

Okay, let’s try.

Baarle.

It is a Dutch town in the Netherlands. But it is also a Dutch town in Belgium.
It is a Belgian town in Belgium and is also a Belgian town in the Netherlands.

I hope you are not confused as yet.
Some more ?

Baarle-Hertog Vs Baarle-Nassau

Okay.
It is a piece of Belgian land completely encircled by Netherlands and vice versa.

Ahaa ! Now I can see you are perplexed indeed.

Baarle is a quiet town that is part of two countries and is located at the Dutch-Belgian border. NL part is called Hertog and Belgian part Nassau.

Well, this reason was not compelling enough for me to go there.
But when I was told by a colleague, the complexity of the place and how a door of your house can decide how much taxes you have to pay, it was a just matter of time when I would visit the place.

An embossed map of Baarle-Hertog and Baarle-Nassau on a footpath.

In Baarle, two is THE number. Because the community is made up of two different countries, duplication has become a way of life. There are two civic governments, with two elections for two mayors and also at regional and national level.
There are many other TWOs that make it more interesting.

Two police forces enforcing two different sets of law but sharing the same building. And there are two income-tax rates, two electrical systems, two phone systems, two school systems, and two tennis clubs.
Infrastructure and maintenance costs that are shared between the two Baarles include civic services like garbage, sewage, fire, and public transit. The cost of cultural centre is shared, but the centre itself is divided.

It does not end here.
There are two postal services. If you mail a letter from one country to another (which is actually across the street), the letter will take a longer route out of Baarle to Amsterdam or Brussels, as the case maybe, before returning to Baarle.
So, you can save yourself several days’ delay by simply walking to the nearest mailbox in the other country and mailing from there. But hey ! Don’t forget to put the right stamp!
Fortunately now you have a single currency but earlier times both currencies made their rounds. And all this for a population of less than 9000 (75% NL and 25% B) !

Okay, if you think this is also not that appealing. Read on….
Contd to next post.
See a short video of the town.
Note- Baarle : A unique town in two countries is a part of www.lemonicks.com.
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The Year That Was

Cuckoo — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 11:40:41 +0000

Another year. Another set of to-dos. And a time to take stock… Don’t frown for this late post, we are still in January month.

Year 2008 was a good year in terms of travel for me. I managed to balance between my work related and personal travels. All the trips were short since now I don’t go on long term trips.
In the year 2008 I have been to a few places abroad (USA & Europe) and in India. I am yet to write about my foreign trips mostly because I hardly get to see a newer place or anything new about an old place. And I am yet to write about some of the trips done within India last year as well.

New York

Antwerp

On homeland, apart from my usual trips to Delhi which I have stopped counting, the year started with a two day trip to Nagaon, few hours drive from Mumbai… not posted yet. Then a 10 days trip to Goa happened which seemed very less for the kind of variety it offers us. After 17 posts, there is still lot remaining to write about. This sojourn kept me going for first few months of the year.

Goa

Then after two short trips abroad, towards the end of rainy season a trip to Lonavala was a refreshing change. Will go there again. It has much more than what we experienced.

Lonavala

In November, there was another trip to Delhi.

New Delhi

And from there out of the blue I could snatch a day to visit Amritsar. It was totally a different experience altogether and I am yet to wrap up the stories about it.

Amritsar

Come December, and a trip was planned for Ganapatipule with extended family, a strikingly beautiful coastal place in Konkan region. My first but definitely not the last visit there.

Within Mumbai city, besides daily regular chaotic places, I could see Mani Bhavan, Sanjay Gandhi Park, Bandra Fort, Elephanta (thrice), Gateway (n times) and so on.

Mumbai

Let’s hope the coming year brings me more. Will write later about my wish-list.

P.S.- Hmmm… people do not travel for months and they maintain a successful travel blog; I travel so much that I am unable to maintain my travel blog. Irony.. they call it.

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