It's great being a tourist and leisurely wandering old towns and villages seeing the sites, but is it such a thrill the local residents? Villagers living the area known as 'Old Holland' outside Amsterdam have had enough visitors traipsing around and tour guides with megaphones disturbing their peace. They have got together local tour companies to create rules conduct for tourists. The rules include not photographing residents permission, not strolling their gardens and not dropping litter. The new code of conduct is an attempt to deal the growing popularity the region. Tourism is booming and the number tourists is expected to rise 50 per cent in the next decade.
Old Holland is an idyllic area that matches people's image Dutch life a slower, bygone age. There are windmills everywhere and locals live beautifully preserved, traditional wooden houses. Local resident Peter-Jan van Steenbergen told Holland's Het Parool newspaper that the village Zaanse Schans is like an open-air museum. He said: "I talked to one resident who opened his curtains the morning and looked the camera lenses nine amateur photographers." He added: "The visitors seem happy to knock the wooden houses to see if it is real wood. If you are the resident that house, that is not pleasant, course." He said the busloads of tourists were the biggest nuisance.
