If you look at our rating the Amsterdam Defence Line is not a popular WHS. In any case it offers a rather unique and interesting story which is inextricably connected to older similar defence lines, the most important of which were the Old and the New Dutch Waterline. All of them were huge enterprises including dozens of forts, dykes and sluices. They all use water which the Dutch normally have to fight against as a weapon against invading enemies. If that is not original enough they also flooded their own, mostly agricultural but also populated land on huge areas as you can see on the maps of the Dutch Waterline on Wikipedia for example, which is rather self destructive. I find it also funny that the land had to be flooded very shallowly since too low water would still allow driving and walking and to high water levels would allow boats.
It is a bit surprising that the Amsterdam Defence Line was the first of these lines that made the list since one would think that the oldest lines were the revolutionary undertakings and most worth of an inscription and the later lines could be regarded as more of a imitation or continuation. As I could find out there seem to be two reasons for this: The Amsterdam Line as the newest project is the best preserved of the three. And since the older lines belong to several provinces they had supposedly a hard time to come up with a common application while the region of nord Holland seem to have been quicker with the presentation of its application.
Well, what is there to see? Basically it is a big circle of mostly 20th century forts in a big ring around the city of Amsterdam surrounded with much typical Dutch countryside of fields, canals etc. Since the forts were kept for possible future use between the two world wars they were off limits and even there construction was often kept secret. As a consequence most forts still are surrounded by natural habitats, where rare animals and plants can be found. Therefore this WHS should be high on the list for our bird watchers!
It may be a real pleasure to bike along the line from Edam to Muiden and its surrounding forts, especially for the natural landscape. The visit of the forts may get monotone after a while but most forts are closed anyway.
I had this time only one day for this WHS and my first idea was to visit the Beemster Polder, a WHS which contains in its core zone at least three of the forts of the Amsterdam Line. That sounds cool and one of them is even a nice hotel. But since the Beemster Polder is on this website described as a rather underwhelming WHS I decided to visit it rather in a warmer season when the flora as more attractive.
Therefore I decided to concentrate on the eastern end of the defence line. If you study the official map of the Amsterdam Line you see that there are only two historic townscapes included in the core zone: Muiden and Weesp. Since both are easily reachable by public transport from Amsterdam and both contain historic town centers with fortifications from different eras, so this seemed a good choice. Both of them were also part of the Old and the New Dutch Waterline and have constructions from all three projects. I decided to include nearby Naarden as well, since it was part of both Dutch waterlines and is included in the nomination of the New Dutch Waterline.
 
To Weesp you can get easily and several times per hour by Sprinter train from Amsterdam Duiverdrecht. The city has a fortified island in its harbour on which you find Fort Ossenmarkt, a round fort with a moat that is closed to visitors. This island has also bastions that can be seen easily from the town and I did not explore them by foot. In the summer season there seems to be a very nice looking garden on the island called De Theetuin.
I walked around the very pretty town center which was the liveliest of the four I saw on this day. There is a majestic church (closed like most Dutch churches and only open on summer weekends), a grand town hall with an interesting looking museum (open Wed through Sun), a yacht harbour and a working windmill beyond the southern canal (open only on Saturdays). Helas, when I was there everything was closed and after walking around for a good hour I walked back to the train station to catch the bus to Muiden.
 
The bus runs once an hour and goes directly to Muiden. You get off at Muiden Centrum. From there you walk a few minutes to the town center. The old city is less interesting then Weesp if you look at the houses and streets but it has two great advantages: Its location near the IJmeer and its castle.
This castle is supposedly the best conserved castle in the Netherlands and while it is small and simple compared with grand castles in other countries it is certainly worth a visit. It was a key factor for Dutch waterlines since it controlled the acces to the river Veesp from the IJmeer which was at that time still part of the sea since the Markerwaarddijk was only added in the 20th century. While it is nice to walk through the castle and along the walls and to climb the towers it is at least as interesting to see the walls, fortifications and dikes around the castle since it stood in an neverending struggle with possible invaders and the sea. This was a very important strategic position at all times.
Nearby is the modern fort of Muiden, the so called Museum Muizenfort. While the castle is closed on Mondays the Muizenfort is closed on Sundays. Therefore I planned my trip for a Tuesday. So I could see the old and the new fortifications. While the fort is certainly nice to walk around the so called Museum was a disappointment: There are a few vitrines with town memorabilia and a few panels explaining the fortification but only in Dutch. The fort is also used as a tourist information with brochures and maps. But it is very, very small and, as I mentioned before, only in Dutch, therefore do not plan your trip around it. There are two more modern forts in Muiden that are not open to visitors and I was content to see them from a distance.
In the summertime you can take the boat from Muiden to Pampus Island, a large modern fort. It looks very interesting but in this season I had no possibility to visit it.
 
From Muiden Centrum I took the hourly bus to Naarden and you need to change buses once if you want to get to the old city. This town played a key role in the defence of Amsterdam and was fortified several times which underlines its importance.  It has the shape of a slightly elongated star with six arrow shaped green bastions which alternate with six similarly shaped defence islands.
Some fortified towns like Neuf Brisach are such a great sight on pictures from the air that they disappoint at least slightly when you visit them and can see just from the horizontal perspective. Not so here: The water in the two moats makes a big difference and your ever changing perspective goes from the town with the big church tower to the surrounding bastions and on to the fortified island and the surrounding dike that seperates the inner from the outer moat. The latter is planted with poplar trees and is used by the towns people to run or walk their dogs.
Since the weather had turned rather bad by then I decided to visit the Vestingmuseum (closed on Mondays). This is a quite interesting museum that leads you through long corridors but there is no audio guide and almost all panels are only in Dutch. This was even more annoying since there was a whole section about the Dutch waterline! You do get a couple of sheets with some information in English but it is not much. A bit odd in a country where most people speak English well or even excellently.
After the museum I walked on to the next bastion to the East. Here they used the subterranean hallways for a restaurant, shops and firms by adding several glass roofs. This looked like a excellent project to use the old fortifications for new goals. I continued to the Utrecht gate. There you find the tourist information and you can cross a dike to one of the former defence islands which is now used for a galerie and a shop, everything done very tastefully and reminding of a hobbit village.
I had initially planned to walk around the whole town since the fortification looked so great but since the bad weather continued I cut into town. The impressive church was closed, perhaps because they were doing renovations. There is an adorable renaissance town hall but it is open only on weekends in the afternoon. Furthermore there is a museum about the important Czech humanist and pedagogue Comenius (including his mausoleum) and the old harbor with the former Arsenal. Here as well you find several buildings gently turned into shops and offices, probably a good thing to keep the town alive. But not just the fortifications seem perfectly preserved here, also the town is beautifully renovated and inhabited. I will try and come back some day in nice weather and walk around the fortifications, explore the town and take a boat ride. You can certainly spend an active and relaxing day here.
This town must be part of the nomination of the New Dutch Waterline. It is so well preserved that you could wonder why it wasn’t even nominated on its own. While the Belgians were so successful to position almost all of there (often wonderful) towns on the list the Dutch stuck more to their (often striking) water management and left almost all of their well preserved and beautiful towns out of consideration. While several of them would have given good arguments for inscription at an earlier time by now they might have more chance as part of this waterline nomination.
I finished my time in Naarden after a few hours because of the rain and took the bus to the next larger village, Laren, which was recommended by my host. It is a famous village and hosted a group of painters with the same name. The excellent American painter and collector William Henry Singer settled there too and his collection is the core of a famous museum featuring impressionist and expressionist art. There is a wonderful cafe with original paintings and a sculpure garden too. This was a nice alternative for bad weather, if though not UNESCO related, and I returned happily to Amsterdam by bus after a full day.