Volendam - Chasing The Travel Bug

Volendam is a little sea-side fishing village only 15 miles north of Amsterdam. This statement alone is crazy to me because Amsterdam is a huge city with more than 800,000 permanent residents and tons of tourists and Volendam is a little Dutch town that looks like a city from yesteryear with a significant amount of countryside between it and Amsterdam.

The shoreline in Volendam was a mix of restaurants, bars, touristy shops and those strange photo places where you can dress up in traditional clothes and have family pictures taken.

We drove from Amersfoort to Volendam in a little over an hour. It’s not possible to take a train to Volendam, but we could have taken a train to Amsterdam and then transferred to a bus. Although we didn’t choose this route, it’s amazing how well connected the cities in the Netherlands are via public transportation.

Boats of all shapes and sizes were in the marina in Volendam. This area is right below the restaurants/bars/shops we are walking by in the other pictures.

We promised the kids a trip to a new playground that I found by zooming around on Google Earth. Upon arrival, we discovered that for some reason the playground was closed. The boys handled this news pretty well, but to make it up to them we bought Jack a giant rainbow lollipop and Ben a few gummy bears at a nearby candy shop. Unlike several of the other places we’ve visited in the Netherlands, the main street along the marina in Volendam had a very touristy feel to it. The stores scattered between the bars and restaurants were candy shops, tourist souvenir shops, and photography places where you could dress up in traditional clothing.

Note the giant lollipop in Jack’s hand. This was his consolation prize after the playground I promised him turned out to be closed. He ate the whole thing.

I think most people take a day trip to Volendam from Amsterdam to sit at one of the restaurants/bars and look at the water. Another option would be to take the ferry across the bay to Marken, another small fishing village. We chose to wander the main street along the water and find a spot to sit at one of the bars.

We had a beer at this pub in Volendam near the ferry to Marken. The sidewalk/street had many similar restaurants where you could sit and look at the water and the people passing by.

Round 1 of beer was chugged with little kids in our laps as we fed them sandwiches, fruit and other edible items in an attempt to get them to sit still. Round 2 of beer was enjoyed with smiles after we discovered this bar had WiFi and we could put on a show for them to watch. Guess which round this picture is from?

Two little guys watching cartoons under the table. A few minutes after I took this picture, Ben poked me on the leg to show me something in his mouth. It was gum. Someone else’s chewed up gum they had spit on the floor. Ewww.

After our drinks, we walked further north out of the touristy area and came to this spot where houses lined the shoreline and there was a small beach.

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