A village that opens its barns
Transcript
Wezup is tiny. About a hundred and seventy people live here, almost exactly as many as in 1840. And yet every December thousands of visitors come, because the whole village opens its barns.
The name first appears in 1284, as Wesepe, which means something like "brook through the meadow." It is a classic Drenthe esdorp: a farming village grouped around a village green, with the farmhouses close together and the fields, the essen, around them.
For centuries the farmers here ran their own affairs. From 1488 Wezup was a boermarke, a self-governing community where the farmers decided together how to share the common land, the grazing and the work. It is a very Drenthe way of doing things: practical, collective, and without much fuss.
The Christmas market works in the same spirit. It is organised by a small local committee, and the stalls are not in a square but inside the old barns and sheds of the farms. You walk from one barn to the next, and some visitors arrive by covered tractor wagon from the car park.
So look around while you shop. The beams over your head have sheltered hay and cattle for generations. For one weekend a year, they shelter Christmas instead.
Source: en.wikipedia.org, whereisthemarket.com
