The waterfront
Coloured timber houses and moored fishing boats.
Hullie — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Dennis G. Jarvis — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Dennis G. Jarvis — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Dennis G. Jarvis — CC BY-SA 2.0
The usual arrangement is Zaanse Schans for the windmills in the morning, Volendam for lunch on the quay, and Marken by ferry in the afternoon. All three fit into one day by bus and ferry or on an organised trip. If you must choose one: Zaanse Schans for the windmills, or Marken if you want quiet and authenticity more than photographs.
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Volendam is a former fishing village on the Markermeer some twenty kilometres north of Amsterdam, and the most visited of the traditional Dutch villages — which is both its blessing and its problem. The village is known for its traditional dress: a pointed white cap for women, a striped skirt, and wide black trousers for men. The costume has not been everyday wear for decades, but it survives in the studios along the harbour front where visitors put it on to be photographed — a tourist tradition more than a century old, begun when European painters came here in the nineteenth century. The waterfront is the place: coloured timber houses, moored fishing boats and smoked fish restaurants. From the same quay a short ferry crosses to Marken, a peninsula that was an isolated island and is far quieter than Volendam — and combining the two is the sensible shape for the day.
Coloured timber houses and moored fishing boats.
A once-isolated peninsula, far quieter.
Volendam, 1131 North Holland