hello I just got off the bus in the town
of vows right on the border between
Germany and the Netherlands and today
we're going to take on the biggest
challenge the greatest adventure the
ultimate test in Dutch mountaineering
it's time to climb the highest hill in
Holland
[Music]
here in vaults we're in the extreme
southeastern corner of the Netherlands
squished right up next to Germany and
Belgium and in a world coincidence we're
not a million miles from where I filmed
my videos about the Fenn barn and the
giant hole of Hamburg even though all
three are in different countries from
here our goal is to conquer the mighty
valsa burg mountain which is named after
the town and towers above it at 322
metres above sea level Holland has a
reputation for being completely flat but
as you can see that could not be further
from the truth
having said that if you're from the
north of the country you might be
unprepared for these conditions so
before we carry on let's go through the
kit that you'll need if you want to come
here and climb the mountain yourself
that's coming up on screen now
about five minutes into the climb we
find these two signs having an argument
with each other one of them points to
the jury London punt or in English three
country corner while the other gives the
street name as fear grunts invade or for
boarders way but if there are three
countries how are there four borders
well we'll worry about that later
because the road is getting steeper and
I mean this is genuinely a hill now and
I'm so used to Holland being completely
flat to the point that it's part of the
identity of the place that it feels
genuinely quite weird to see Dutch
houses like these on a hill I mean you
know not like yeah weird but sort of a
ha type of weird anyway enough of that
we've reached the edge of the town now
and the real mountain starts here so cue
the scenic montage
[Music]
[Applause]
oh wait
the montage finished already oh right
sorry where were we um well I guess this
is it
we've reached the summit of the valsa
bear I mean only the Netherlands could
have a mountain that looked as flat as
this on the top but this is the highest
point in the country and there's the
sign to prove it right now we are higher
than anyone else in Holland and that is
quite a thing to say but the fun doesn't
end there as long as you can
international geopolitics is fun because
just over here is the famous dry London
Pune this stone marks the exact point
where the Netherlands Belgium and
Germany all meet and the three borders
are marked out on the ground wait three
borders so why was that road called the
four borders way well it turns out there
used to be something else here and when
I say here I mean here if we go back to
the early 1800s the borders in the area
looked more like this Napoleon has just
been defeated and in 1815 the Congress
of Vienna redraws the European map
dividing up Napoleon's territories here
between the newly formed kingdom of the
Netherlands in the West and Prussia in
the East however there was a bit of a
tug-of-war over this little area because
it contained a zinc mine that was very
valuable as at the time it was one of
only two zinc mines in the whole of
Europe in the end the two countries
agreed to share the area creating a new
territory called neutral Mars net and if
you're wondering why I'm saying Moseley
when we can all clearly see it spelled
Moors net that's because it was named
after the french-speaking town of maahes
neigh which was split in three by the
new borders and things started to get
very weird for the residents of the
neutral area they were governed by both
countries but citizens of neither the
currency was the French franc instead of
Dutch or Prussian and instead of Dutch
with Russian law they used the
Napoleonic Code
basically it seems the best way of
keeping the place neutral was to carry
on with the French stuff they've got
from Napoleon and just kind of pretend
that nothing had happened and it kind of
worked the territory existed for over a
hundred years more than enough time to
witness Belgium gaining independence
from the Netherlands in 1830 which
resulted in the creation of that
mysterious missing fourth border neutral
maahes near even managed to outlast the
mine which exhausted its supply of zinc
in 1885 and closed down taking with it
the reason the territory existed in the
first place various proposals were made
to give the place a new heads on debt
including making it a tax haven opening
a casino and perhaps most optimistically
of all turning it into the world's first
Esperanto speaking state unfortunately
all of that was rudely interrupted by
World War one and when the Treaty of
Versailles redrew the borders of Europe
again neutral mines made disappeared
from the map forever so back to today
and there's a question I really want to
ask at the tourist info if they weren't
closed imagine there was something you
could do that was legal in the
Netherlands but illegal in Germany or
Belgium I know it's not easy but just
see if you can imagine something if you
stood here like this and did that thing
would you be committing a crime who
exactly would arrest you and why is
pillow fighting illegal in Germany
anyway what did you think if you'd like
to visit the valsa bear the three
country corner and the former not quite
country of Meissner it's all a short bus
ride from the German city of Aachen or
the Dutch city of Maastricht the climb
to the top of the mountain requires
three kilometres of not quite hiking
anyway thanks for watching stay tuned
for more adventures and following the
2010 dissolution of the Netherlands and