Windmills and Seafood and Cheese … Oh My!

We began our second European adventure in Amsterdam. While we usually create our own itinerary and explore places independently, on this day we took a Viator group tour to the villages of Zaanse Schans, Edam, Volendam, and Marken, all located a short distance north of Amsterdam.

Zaanse Schans

Zaanse Schans features a collection of historic windmills and wooden houses relocated from the wider region north of Amsterdam for preservation between 1961 and 1974. It’s a tourist destination to be sure, but it was still interesting to see actual windmills up close.

We attended a brief demonstration of how wooden shoes are made. While they are still made by craftspeople, specialized wood carving machinery has standardized and shortened the process significantly. And, of course, there were hundreds available for sale.

Edam

Next, we visited Edam, the birthplace of the popular cheese variety. Among other things, we learned the proper pronunciation: It’s A-daum, rather than E-dam.

Edam is a charming, postcard-worthy town that seems easily livable. 

While we were walking through town, we passed Matthew’s Musical Instruments. Jeff immediately recognized the name; he purchased a flute headjoint online from this shop a year ago.

Edam’s oldest brick house was built around 1530 as a private house and converted to a museum in 1895. It’s unique in that it has a floating cellar floor that rises and falls with the groundwater. Like several other buildings in Edam, it leans due to the ground settling unevenly over time.

We toured a Henri Willig cheese shop, which included a brief presentation on how cheese is made. We tasted at least 30 varieties of cheese in their tasting room. While we were tempted to buy one of each, we made the difficult choice of only three.

Volendam

We stopped for lunch in Volendam, next to Edam. Volendam was equally charming, although many of the buildings were newer and the town was more touristy – at least the waterfront area we visited. Our seafood lunch was delicious and the scenery was enjoyable.

Marken

Our final stop was Marken, a small fishing village that was an island until 1957, when a causeway was built to connect it to the mainland. 

While the entire trip was touristy, to be sure, we still enjoyed seeing some of the Netherlands’ small towns, learning the history of the area, and marveling at how Dutch engineers tamed the ocean, created new land, and managed the water levels.