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Free tours in Amsterdam on the International Tourist Guide Day 21 February 2012

FREE TOURS ON INTERNATIONAL TOURIST GUIDE DAY
21 FEBRUARI 2012 
EVERYONE IS WELCOME AT THE CITY HALL

On Tuesday, 21 February 2010, professional tourist guides, the world over, will be presenting themselves to the general public by offering free guided tours in 53 of the world's major cities.
Guidor, representing the Netherlands' professional tourist guides with over 120 members, speaking 20 major languages, will also be participating in this event.
On this occasion, Guidor will be organising the program together with the Municipality of Amsterdam and the Normaal Amsterdams Peil (NAP) Foundation.
The event will revolve around the visitor's centre of the NAP (Normal Amsterdam Level) which is located in the City Hall (Stopera), address: Amstel 1.
At 10.00, the International Tourist Guide Day will be opened  at the NAP by the director of the ATCB Stefan Diender.
The theme for this year's event will be “WATER”, embracing the moving history of this neighbourhood; where Rembrandt lived, ships were built in the 16th.c. and the Jews settled and could worship openly. World War II has also left it's scars here.
Guided tours of the neighbourhood will be offered by members of Guidor in the major European languages, departing every 30 mins from 10.30 to 15.30. The guides will be carrying blue umbrellas with the white Guidor insignia for identification purposes.
On this day, the 21 February, admission to the NAP visitor's centre will be free. The centre is built around a 22m. high pillar capped by the bronze NAP reference point, i.e. the zero level for the Netherlands. Visitors will also be able to discover by means of the centre's computers the chance of getting wet feet due to rising sea levels in the future, whilst committee members  from the NAP foundation will be giving guided tours, explaining the origins and importance of ordinance surveying in the Netherlands.
In 1683, the first Normal Amsterdam Level (NAP) was established by the Mayor, Johannes Hudde in 1675.  He had marble plaques, inserted into the walls the city's eight most important locks, which indicated the zero reference point for the water level in the canals, defined as the average level of the summer floods in the River IJ.
These stones also bore the inscription,” Zeedykse hoogt, zynde negen voet vyf duym boven stadspeyl” (Sea-dikes are nine feet five thumbs above the NAP) or 2,676m. A replica of one of these stones is displayed.
The exact level of the NAP reference point was again determined in 1988 and a network of around 50,000 NAP reference points established all over the Netherlands. Usually bronze markers inserted into wharfs, the walls of buildings or capping pillars.

Any voluntary contributions received for our guiding service on this day will be donated to the NAP foundation, a non-profit making organisation.For further information please contact:Marjolijn van Eys Public Relations-Guidor Tel: 06-26194396 or the Guidor office Tel:  020-6246072

Gidsencentrale online

De eerste 36 gidsen zijn inmiddels opgenomen in de online Gidsendatabase. Bezoekers kunnen hier op verschillende selectiecriteria zoals talen en actviteiten kiezen welke gids het beste bij hun past. Vervolgens kan direct met de gids contact gelegd worden.

De traditionele methode blijft voorlopig nog bestaan, waarbij een bezoeker alleen het boekingsformulier invult, waarop Guidor daarbij een gids zoekt en daar contact mee opneemt.

Wil je dat jouw gidsenpagina ook wordt opgenomen in de lijst neem dan contact op met Marijke