Visiting Volendam and Edam by Bicycle: A Day Trip from Amsterdam

Amsterdam is a vibrant, cosmopolitan and progressive city with a lot to offer—museums for art-lovers and history buffs, world-class cuisine for foodies, party-till-you-drop nightlife for young college students and a million pretty alleyways and canals for just about everyone else.

Yet, while Amsterdam’s popularity is well-deserved, travelers who fail to venture farther afield are missing out on some of Europe’s most charming landscapes.

Merely minutes from Amsterdam, the countryside is awash with lush green pastures, lopsided houses and quaint brick churches. These rural areas just outside the city limits, make for a perfect day trip from Amsterdam.

 

BIKING AROUND THE NETHERLANDS

The Netherlands is flat and compact–a perfect combination for those who wish to explore the Amsterdam parks and canals on two wheels. Even outside the city, paved trails traverse through the surrounding farmland—creating a tangled web of paths that link the surrounding villages.

On previous trips to the Netherlands, I’d biked to the village of Durgerdam and to the open-air folk museum of Zaanse Schans. Both day trips from Amsterdam allowed me to become familiar with the network of cycling trails surrounding the Dutch capital and solidified my confidence in navigating the countryside without the aide of Google Maps.

Thus, on my third bike trip from Amsterdam, I used my newly-acquired navigation skills and set out on a 45km bike ride to Volendam and Edam–two postcard perfect villages where time seems to have stood still.

 

VOLENDAM VILLAGE

Volendam is an attractive fishing village on the shores of Lake Markermeer. The town’s harbor is speckled with classic sailing vessels and flanked by rows of brick houses that date back to the 17th Century.

Due to its popularity as a day trip from Amsterdam, Volendam’s waterfront is packed to the brim with tourists. The town’s waterside promenade is chock-a-block full of kitschy souvenir shops and restaurants serving traditional meals of eel and pickled herring. Interspersed with these stores and eateries are costume shops where one can pay to dress up and take photos in traditional Dutch clothing.

I even found the exact shop where I dressed in wooden clogs and a flowery smock for an awkward family portrait over thirteen years ago.

Despite Volendam’s kitschy shops and tourist-trap atmosphere, there is no denying that the town is worthy of the hundreds of visitors it attracts every day. With its picturesque rows of houses, its views over Lake Markermeer and its boat-lined waterfront, Volendam looks like a village straight out of a postcard.

 

EDAM: A CHEESE-LOVER’S TOWN

From Volendam, I hopped back on my bike and headed 3km down the road toward the village of Edam. There, I parked my bike and wandered along the town’s canals–allowing myself to be charmed by my surroundings. Like a miniature Amsterdam, rows and rows of narrow brick houses line Edam’s streets and canals.

While Volendam was brimming with tourists, I was surprised to find that I had the equally-picturesque Edam largely to myself.

Once an industrious shipyard, today Edam’s claim to fame is its word-renowned cheese.

 

Historically, local farmers would gather at the town’s cheese market to sell their produce. Although the market closed down in the 1920s, re-enactments of the cheese market occur every Wednesday in Edam’s main square.

 

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Visiting Amsterdam’s surrounding countryside is like flipping through a storybook of Dutch clichés. It is in these landscapes that much of what is unique to the region–its windmills, its narrow brick houses, its cow-spotted pastures and its crisscrossing bike lanes–can be found in abundance.

While most people who visit Volendam and Edam choose to explore the area by car or bus, I’m happy that I toured Amsterdam’s surroundings on two wheels rather than four. For in this tiny, compact country where cycling is a way of life, I can think of no better way to travel.

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Further Reading: 

• If your time in the Dutch capital is limited and you’d prefer to focus your time on the city’s highlights instead of taking day trips, Chrysoula’s guide illustrates the best ways to spend two days in Amsterdam. 
• For information on where to stay in Amsterdam, check out Katie’s guide to Amsterdam’s best neighborhoods.

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