Day trip - Properly dutching in Volendaam & Zaanse Schans

Hello, again!

My first trip since I arrived in Amsterdam was organized by ISN Amsterdam (International Student Network) that booked a bus for us and planned a day trip to Volendam and Zaanse Schans.

Volendaam

Situated not very far from Amsterdam, our first stop was Volendam – an old fishing village, famous for its cozy harbor and fishing trade (and not to mention live music if you’re lucky enough to a catch a spontaneous orchestra concert in the harbor).

We explored the village on foot and took in all the beautiful watery landscape and ginger-bread-looking houses while going through its old quarters, full of maze-like narrow streets. Beware of the tourists though. There are plenty of them so it is not going to be a very ‘private’ experience and it is all because of the many painters who came here to paint this beautiful scenery for centuries.

A memory worth having is taking your photo in the traditional Volendam clothing and Dutch wooden shoes at ‘Foto de Boer’. We were a lot of people so changing clothes took some time, but in the end, leaving aside the touristic stereotypes, it was a lot of fun and we ended up with a really lovely photo to take home as a souvenir.

For food we then stopped at restaurant Lotje where we had some fish since no visit to Volendam would be complete without herring. We passed by some other nice restaurants that you might want to consider too depending on your budget and what you want to eat: De Lunch, De Haven, Vishandel Lekkers or Grand Café Restaurant De Dijk. Or restaurant was quite cozy and with not many options, but in the end, we only wanted to have some kibbeling (the traditional battered and fried fish nuggets), eel and herring.

The town is not very big so there’s not that much to explore and I cannot really say you can get lost and see more than the harbor, but it is definitely a nice trip to make for the traditional costume photo, cheese and fish.

Zaanse Schans

Our second stop was Zaanse Schans and I can definitely say it was something truly Dutch and unique I was very glad I put on my travelling list.

Zaanse Schans proved to be a beautiful pitoresque village with real churning windmills that are so typically Dutch. You will count too many of them here since they are everywhere and what’s more, if you want you can even go up and admire the view from the top of some of them for a small fee. Most of the windmills still work so simply witnessing the rotating pallets in the sun setting light is a splendor in itself. We took our time to walk along the paths along the water and take in all the beautiful views around the houses. We even spotted some goats and chickens. Just like in a countryside town!

This town depicts the authentic Dutch life in the 17-18thcenturies and the dairy factory situated right at the entrance of it will offer you a very accurate impression of how the locals’ lives used to be like.

At the end of the day, we explored the souvenir shops and tried to find the perfect mini windmill, wooden shoes or cheese wheel to take home as a memory.

Even though I cannot say these two small towns were that impressive for an avid traveler maybe, we enjoyed their simplicity. We went there to discover them with no expectations apart from seeing something typically Dutch so I can definitely recommend visiting these yourself. Maybe I would do it again, but without ISN. I think making your own schedule is better than sticking with a big group. It was quite hard to organise everyone to be on time and we had to wait a lot and even managed to be so late in Zaanse Schans we only had one hour to enjoy it all.  

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