We start this tour through the region on Monday morning in Kampen. Where the rain comes pouring down from the sky. “You would almost become cynical and say that this again symbolizes the state of the market,” says Jaap Buter (68) from Kamperveen. There are hardly any visitors. At least a quarter of the twenty merchants stayed at home.
The merchant with legwear gets into a conversation with Jan Elhorst. The 75-year-old from Kampen traded in the same goods and retired definitively at the beginning of this year. “Fifteen years ago there were still sixty stalls,” he sighs. They laugh, to which Buter says: “Look, we look like two old men from the days when everything was better.”