Daily Archives: September 23, 2011

Longest Runway…

How can you get all eyes in your direction when you celebrate 170 years in business? It’s very easy, you build the longest runway on a dam with on one side the Wadden Sea, which is part of the North Sea, and on the other side the fresh water lake of IJsselmeer in the Netherlands.

That’s what C&A [Clemens & August Brenninkmeijer] did, they started with a small haberdashery shop in Sneek, Friesland in 1841 and have grown over the years to 1.400 fashion department stores in 19 European countries. This number is without their stores in Mexico, Brazil and China.

The Afsluitdijk [Enclosure Dam], is a major causeway in the Netherlands, constructed between 1927 and 1933 and running from Den Oever on the former isle of Wieringen in North Holland province, to the village of Zurich [in the municipality of Wûnseradiel] in Friesland province, over a length of 32 km [20 miles] and a width of 90 m, at an initial height of 7.25 m above sea-level. It is a fundamental part of the larger Zuiderzee Works, damming off the Zuiderzee, a salt water inlet of the North Sea and turning it into the fresh water lake of the IJsselmeer.

BTW, the runway was not the full length of the dam, but 2.1 km / 1.3 miles long, and they had to walk back too!😉