Netherlands Open Air Museum, Open-air museum in Arnhem, Netherlands
The Netherlands Open Air Museum is a heritage site in Arnhem displaying more than 80 historic buildings, including farmhouses, windmills, and workshops brought from different regions of the country. The grounds cover 44 hectares (109 acres) of wooded land and show structures from several centuries of Dutch life.
Historian Frederic Adolph Hoefer opened this site in 1912 with six relocated structures, among them a 17th-century farmhouse from Beuningen. Over the following decades, more buildings arrived from regions throughout the country, expanding the collection.
Craftspeople wearing clothes from earlier centuries work with tools and methods used in past generations, showing visitors how blacksmiths shaped metal or how paper was made by hand. These demonstrations take place inside the workshops and help people understand how daily tasks were done before modern machines.
The site opens from Wednesday to Monday between 11:00 AM and 4:00 PM and welcomes more than 524,000 people each year. Wheelchair users can reach most areas, though some historic buildings have thresholds or narrow doorways.
Historic trams run through the grounds, carrying visitors between themed areas such as gardens, village, countryside, and estate sections. These trams come from different periods of Dutch tramway history and are themselves part of what you see.
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