Friday, May 3, 2019

Hoe dichter bij Dordt hoe rotter het wordt... (the closer to Dordrecht, the more rotten it gets)

Dordrecht (historically in English named Dort), is a city and municipality in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the fourth-largest city of the province, with a population of 118,450. 
Finding a photo of a bearded boinero from Dordrecht with the obscure text: "Hoe dichter bij Dordt hoe rotter het wordt"... ("the closer to Dordrecht, the more rotten it gets"), I became intrigued and found the following:
The saying can probably be explained as follows; traffic used to go by water and whoever came close to Dordrecht was obliged, according to staple right, to display their merchandise for a couple of days before being allowed to sail on. This caused loss of time and caused products to become rotten.

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