The Town in Two Countries
In Baarle, the Belgian-Dutch border runs through living rooms, cafes and front doors - the world's most tangled town, and other places where borders get strange.
In one small town south of the Dutch city of Breda, the border between the Netherlands and Belgium does not run between the two halves of town. It runs through them: through streets, gardens, cafes and, in several houses, straight through the front room.
A town called Baarle, twice
Baarle-Nassau is Dutch. Baarle-Hertog is Belgian. They occupy the same town, tangled together in more than twenty separate Belgian enclaves inside Dutch territory, several of which contain smaller Dutch enclaves inside them, islands within islands. The mess dates to medieval land deals between two feuding lords, parcel by parcel, and nobody ever untangled it. The border is marked in white crosses across the pavements, and house nationality is decided by where the front door sits, which is why some owners have historically moved their front door a few metres to change country.
The everyday results are gleefully absurd. A cafe's tables can sit in one country and its bar in another. Two town halls, two mayors, two postal systems and two sets of national rules operate street by street. When closing hours differed, drinkers famously just moved to the table across the line.
Other borders behaving badly
Baarle is the champion, but not alone. The island of Saint Martin has been split between France and the Netherlands since 1648, with an open border you cross without noticing, French pastries on one side and Dutch-Caribbean beach bars on the other; see Marigot for the French half. The French-Spanish border crosses an island in a river that swaps countries every six months. A hotel lobby once straddled the Swiss-French line, and a Nordic golf course tees off in one country onto greens in another.
Why travellers love them
Odd borders are honest history you can stand on: every zigzag is an old treaty, marriage or argument frozen into the pavement. They also make delightfully easy day trips - Baarle sits close to Amsterdam and Bruges, and the whole point is simply to wander, cross the crosses, and photograph yourself in two countries at once. Comfortable shoes from the city kit are the only equipment required.
Borders are usually walls or rivers or fences. In Baarle they are a line of white crosses past the bakery, and everyone just steps over.
