Marken - Travel & Tourism Guide Marken - Pays-Bas

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21 km from Amsterdam. This small fishing village is the pearl of the region. It's the only place in the area to have preserved all its character, because here, concessions to modern life are made with great difficulty! The town was founded by Frisian monks, who developed the island using dykes to protect arable land from flooding, then abandoned it in the 14th century, allowing the dykes to burst. As repeated flooding put an end to farming and livestock breeding, Marken became an important fishing port in the region. There was even some lucrative whaling (it's hard to imagine a whale landing in this little port...).