Antecedentes Históricos de la Quinua

Tourism in the area of the Witte Veen is represented by hiking routes, biking routes, border

landmarks and the central location of the Haarmühle. When perceiving the Haarmühle as part of a tourism network, one can see that both customers and staff come from the Netherlands and from Germany. The location is not focused specifically towards one side of the border, but is connected to both states through networks and shared information. The origin of the Haarmühle as a bi-

Figure 20: Systematic representation of roads

national location lies with its history, through which it has profited largely from its location near a border. The location of the Haarmühle as an establishment is also used often by managers (both NL and D) of the Witte Veen for meetings.

In the Witte Veen one hiking network was encountered, which was provided by Regio Twente. The German side does not have a hiking network or route in the area because its natural area is not accessible for hiking or biking. The Dutch hiking routes cross the border in order to start at the Haarmühle. It is not uncommon that hiking networks do not connect, because people walking a hiking route are not interested in hiking routes longer than 20 kilometres (Van Den Heuvel, 2016). For people that are interested in longer hiking routes so called long-distance hiking routes are available such as the Noaberpad. This route does cross the border into Germany several times, it however remains an initiative of a Dutch organisation, which is not linked to German organisations. Figure 21 shows a systematic representation of hiking networks. The networks are located mainly in one country, the red line is a long distance route. The shorter hiking routes are shown in yellow and orange. Although the orange network does cross the border, it does not connect to the yellow network. The origin of the disjunctures in hiking networks can be related back to the fact that hiking routes have historically not been influenced much by borders since routes could cross the border at “green” border crossings. Furthermore hiking routes such as the Noaberpad were attracted

specifically to the border region because of its rare nature. That such longer routes don't show network connections across the national border can be attributed to the Dutch and German organisations having different backgrounds, norms and values (De Boer, 2016).

In the Witte Veen there are also biking routes, provided by the Dutch “fietsknooppuntennetwerk”. It has been decided to connect these Dutch “knooppunten” to the German network34_{. The abstract} representation of this connection can be seen in figure 22, where the orange network connects to the yellow network. Nevertheless the Dutch and the German biking networks are not the same network; they have different backgrounds, are managed by different institutions and show no profound other connections (e.g. cooperation between managers) than the physical connections at the border. The cross border route that is found in the area is the “Flamingoroute” (shown in red in figure 22), a long distance biking route. It is a German initiative, which has been supported by multiple organisations and has been funded by Euregio. At the moment the unclarity of primary

responsibility for the route leads to a deterioration of the maintenance, which is now often cared for

34 Because of the connection of the Dutch network across the border one can find Dutch information signs across the border. Figure 22: Systematic representation of biking networks Figure 21: Systematic representation of hiking networks

by local businesses near the route, since they feel the route may contribute to their profit. Since people can bike longer distances than they can hike, the biking routes cover the whole schematic area. The routes do connect, but are part to different systems as shown by the different colours. For many years border landmarks have been the subject of deterioration, especially since the opening of the internal European borders. In the current context of the Witte Veen, border

landmarks have however also been explained as touristic attractions in the landscape. On a micro scale this has led to the increase in (plans for the) local maintenance of some touristic historical locations. The result of such local initiatives can be seen in hiking or biking routes leading past border markers, or in protection of a border stone as could be seen in figure 8. It has not been possible to distinguish different networks of border markers (e.g. shown through different border stones, or different customs houses) between Germany and the Netherlands, which is logical since they mark the border (one line between nations) between these two nations. A difference was however found through looking at the numbers of the border stones. The eastern border of the Netherlands is enclosed by two types of border stones with different numbers, of different ages. This difference originates in the time that Germany did not exist yet; the high numbers in the area are stones from the border with Prussia, the low numbers are the stones from the border with Lower Saxony. This shows a historical disjuncture in border demarcation, that has been dealt with by adding high numbers to the stones with lower numbers. The attraction of tourism to these border landmarks in the region however does not show a disjuncture as a result of the border functioning as a barrier35_.