Zaanse Schans north of Amsterdam. Image courtesy of Oliver on Flickr.
The Holland of windmills, clogs, cheese and tulips is alive and well, and within easy reach of Amsterdam. Take a trip back in time to enjoy visiting Traditional Holland from Amsterdam.
Zaanse Schans is an historic area where 17th- and 18th-century village life in northern Holland is replicated. This living slice of history is made up of houses, windmills and workshops that were moved to the 8-hectare (20-acre) site when industrialization leveled their original locations. At one time, northern Holland had 600 windmills but only 15 survive today – of these 10 are at Zaanse Schans, including a sawmill and mills specializing in producing paint, vegetable oil and Zaanse mustard, all prettily located on the Zaan riverside.
Tucked among the gabled wooden houses are several excellent museums exhibiting traditional crafts, including the Bakkerijmuseum (Bakery Museum), where cookies are made to old recipes, and the Nederlandse Uurwerk (Dutch Clock) Museum, which displays timepieces from the period 1500 to 1900. Lovingly showcasing every Dutch cliché are the Klompenmakerij (Clog Maker’s Workshop), a workshop where wooden klompen (clogs) are made and sold; and De Catherina Hoeve Kaasmakerij, where traditional cheeses are made to ancient recipes. Most of these mini museums are open April to October daily.
Volendam and Marken are north of Amsterdam in the “Waterland” and have long been combined on bus-tour itineraries as a kind of pre-packaged “clogs, cheese and windmills” day trip. A small, Catholic town on the mainland, Volendam lost most of its fishing industry to the enclosure of the Zuiderzee in 1932. It now makes its living from tourism, and has plenty of souvenir and gift stores, boutiques, cafes, and restaurants. Still, Volendam’s boat-filled harbor, tiny streets, and traditional houses have an undeniable charm. This is the place to pull on your lacy peaked headdress and pose for the cameras.
Volendam’s rival in today’s tourism tables is Marken, historically Protestant and an insular island until a narrow causeway connected it to the mainland in 1957. Smaller and less in-your-face than Volendam, it has clusters of farmhouses dotted around the polders and half of the village is constructed of green-and-white houses grouped around a tiny harbor. A clog maker works in summer in the village car park.
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