Giethoorn - The Dutch Village With No Roads

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Can you imagine a village with no roads? There is such a place in the Netherlands called Giethoorn (pronounced geethorn). There are no roads and cars have to remain outside the village. The only access to the stunningly lovely houses in Giethoorn is by water, or on foot over tiny individual wooden bridges.
Giethoorn is located about 5km southwest of Steenwijck in Holland and became famous - especially after the 1958 Dutch film Fanfare, made by Bert Haanstra, was set there. Giethoorn is now an internationally known tourist attraction in the Netherlands
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Giethoorn is called the Venice of the Netherlands because about 7.5km of canals run through the little village. Some 50 little wooden bridges span the canals. It was founded in around 1230 and originally called Geytenhorn, which over time has become Giethoorn.
All traffic has to go over the water, and it is done in so called punters, called whisper-boats as they are driven by an electric motor, so they barely disturb the peace and quiet in this scenic little village.
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The canals are only about 1m deep and were dug out to transport peat, the digging of which resulted in many ponds and shallow lakes, called Wieden. Many houses have been built on islands and are only reachable over wooden bridges.
Most houses have thatched roofs, the marshy areas providing a lot of reed. In former days only rich people had tiled roofs, for tiles were much more expensive than reed, but now its the otherway round. Having a thatched roof costs a lot more money than having it covered with tiles.
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