Jisk de Jong is only 4 years old and about 40 inches tall, but he can trace his finger along the roof and crouch to peek into a window of the Amsterdam canal house.
Or when he sits on a bridge, his feet dangling over the edge, they nearly touch the water."He loves it here, and we love to come here with him," says his mother, Miriam, an Amsterdam school teacher. "We feel like children, too. Happy children. Madurodam is a happy place for everyone."
Madurodam is a miniature town, population 0, on the outskirts of The Hague near the seaside resort of Scheveningen. It was incorporated when it was founded in 1952 as a memorial to a young Dutchman who died in a Nazi concentration camp near the end of World War II.
Though no one lives there, it is animated. It has a mayor, Frenske van den Dries, a 17-year-old schoolgirl from The Hague. And it has about a million visitors a year, drawn by the brick-by-brick reproductions of famous buildings, bridges and monuments that are so realistic one might be looking through a diminishing lens.
The tourists, like young Jisk de Jong and his parents, come to wander through these architectural treasures of The Netherlands that are built on a scale of 1-to-25 on five acres.
During an afternoon, you can pass by the canal houses of Amsterdam and Delft, Amsterdam's Royal Palace on Dam Square, Alkmaar's cheese market, The Hague's Binnenhof (Parliament Building), Rotterdam's Rijnlands Lyceum, Blaak Station, Van Briendernoord and Erasmus bridges. And you'll note that the famous gothic Dom Tower of Utrecht's Cathedral isn't actually attached to the cathedral.
But Madurodam is more than a collection of well-known structures built to scale. It's a community of the mundane - dikes, polders and windmills; houses, neighborhood churches and schools; commercial areas with cinemas, banks and shops; an industrial area with warehouses and factories; a military barracks; an amusement park and zoo; a sports park, many gardens and a town gate set in old town walls.
Most fascinating, perhaps, is Madurodam's harbor. In this pond-size commercial hub, ships sail in and out, unloading and taking on cargo. Cranes hoist the containers while draggers keep the harbor from silting up. The operation illustrates how harbors work. There's even a lighthouse, its beam arcing over the water's surface so ships can pass safely in the night.
Airplanes arrive and depart from the Madurodam Airport. Trains ply some two miles of track, stopping at several railway stations. There are miniature cars, trams, commercial vehicles, bicyclists and - at rush hour - traffic jams.
This knee-high to shoulder-height city in action is viewed from life-size walkways. You can steam through it in a couple of hours, though it's best as an all-day excursion. Wheelchairs and strollers are available. They are full-size, like the exhibition hall, convention center and visitor amenities.
Madurodam was founded as a memorial to George John Lionel Maduro, a student at the University of Leiden who died in 1945 at Dachau. Maduro's parents and a consortium of businesses built Madurodam in 1952. It underwent a $24 million renovation and expansion last year.
It is known as the only town to be wholly designated a war memorial. All net profits go to charities for Dutch youth.
IF YOU GO: To drive to Madurodam from The Hague, follow signs to Scheveningen Zee-haven, then follow signs for Madurodam. By public transit, take Tram No. 1 or 9 or bus No. 22 from The Hague Central Station. The ride takes about 20 minutes.
Madurodam is open daily 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Last ticket sale is 5 p.m. Admission, rounded off in U.S. dollars, is about $15 for adults, $10 for children 4 to 11, $12 for senior citizens. City guides with maps are about $5.
Madurodam's two restaurants overlooking the miniature town are open for lunch and dinner. Three-course meals start at about $15.
For more information: The Netherlands Board of Tourism, 355 Lexington Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017. Telephone (212) 370-7360.