More than 17 years ago, I took two screenshots of a map of a farm property in the Dutch village I grew up in. It wasn’t just another map. It was a map from 1608. I did recognise the name of a road, which still exists and on which I cycled many years going to high school.
Around Christmas last year, I finally got around pinpointing this map and I was able to figure out exactly where it was with an open source software package called QGIS.
I was also able to read the 17th century Dutch ‘cartouche’ and learned more about the surveyor who created the map, an interesting character, and the owners of the farm.
All in all, it became a bit of story of its own and I thought I write a blog post about it. It is not really cycling related, other than that I biked to the spot where the farm once stood and that I used my bike as a tripod for lack of anything else.
When I visited the museum archives I got to see the map in real life. That was a wonderful experience.
Look for the post on Sunday morning April 3
As always, thank you for your support.
Hans