KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (Dutch: Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij, literally Royal Aviation Company; usual English translation: Royal Dutch Airlines) is the national airline of the Netherlands and is part of Air France-KLM. KLM’s headquarters is in Amstelveen, the Netherlands, near its hub Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.

Schiphol is an important European airport, ranking as Europe’s 3rd largest and the world’s 14th largest for cargo tonnage. It also ranks as the world’s 3rd largest by international passenger traffic as well as Europe’s 5th and the world’s 12th largest by overall passenger volume. Additionally, Schiphol ranks as Europe’s 5th and the world’s 16th busiest airport by number of flights. Schiphol’s main competitors as in passenger and cargo throughput with London Heathrow Airport in the United Kingdom, Frankfurt Airport in Germany, Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport in France and Madrid Barajas Airport in Spain.

In 2007, Schiphol handled 47,793,602 passengers, ranking fifth in Europe behind London, Paris, Frankfurt and Madrid. There are 188 loading slots in the whole airport

On April 19, 1917, H.J.E. Wenckebach and others proposed to setup a steel plant in the The Netherlands with a purpose to reduce Dutch industry’s dependence on imports. A Founding Committee for the Dutch Blast Furnace, Steel and Rolling Works was formed on May 31, 1917, to raise the funds. Once the funds had been raised, the company was founded as Koninklijke Nederlandsche Hoogovens en Staalfabrieken N.V.  The location of IJmuiden was selected to provide easy access to ports (the city is at the mouth of the North Sea Canal, on the North Sea coast).

The Zuiderzeemuseum is a museum located in Enkhuizen, the Netherlands. It recreates a village of mostly small houses from all over the IJsselmeer region. It represents the way people lived around the IJsselmeer in the 19th century and at the start of the 20th century.

IJmuiden is a fairly new town, that only came into existence in 1870 when the North Sea Canal was dug, connecting the Amsterdam harbors to the open sea. Until this time the area where IJmuiden now is located was known as “De Breesaap”, a desolate plain where only a handful of farmers tried to make a living. In 1851 the whole area was sold to the entrepreneurs Bik and Arnold, which finally set into motion the plans that had been drawn up already in 1626. The first spade hit the ground on the 8th of April 1865.

Rome (Italian: Roma, Latin: Roma) is the capital city of Italy and of the Lazio region, as well as the country’s largest and most populous city, with more than 2.7 million residents. The metropolitan area has a population of about 4 million. It is located in the central-western portion of the Italian peninsula, where the river Aniene joins the Tiber.

(source: wikipedia.org)

The Colosseum or Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre (Latin: Amphitheatrum Flavium, Italian Anfiteatro Flavio or Colosseo), is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman.

(source: wikipedia.org)

Vatican City, officially State of the Vatican City (Latin: Status Civitatis Vaticanae; Italian: Stato della Città del Vaticano), is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome. At approximately 44 hectares (108.7 acres), and with a population of around 800, it is the smallest independent state in the world by both population and area.

(source: wikipedia.org)