Day 7 - Volendam

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Today I decided to go full tourist and go on a guided tour.  There were three more places I wanted to see in the Netherlands, Volendam, Marken, and Zaanse Schans Windmills.  To get to Volendam you have to take a bus and then you need to take a ferry to Marken from there.  There also no train to Zaanse Schans so I figured it was easier rather than to try to take all the different buses to just do a tour.  I'm glad I did.  It was pretty impressive.  The initial greeting from the tour guide was in English, then Dutch, then Spanish, then French, then German, then Italian.  Once he got a better feel for his crowd he was able to drop the Dutch and Italian but kept up with the other four all day long.

Volendam was once a prosperous fishing port but had a major flooding problem so they put in a dike and turned the port into a lake which solved the flooding problem but also eliminated fishing.  Today it's mainly a tourist attraction with lots of restaurants and bars and shops.  There main claim to fame is that a lot of places they wear traditional Dutch dress and they have a lot of photo - costume shops where you can dress up still. It was super pretty.  Here we went on a "how to make cheese" tour (say what you want about the Dutch - they make a good dairy product) and went to the traditional dress museum tour.


The traditional dress museum that I would have never gone to in a million years if the tour bus didn't make me.
















Mmm.  Gouda cheese, brie cheese, goat cheese, sheep cheese, old cheese, new cheese.  All delicious cheese.




I will never drink you again when I get home you dumb beer.  Unless you're the only thing left in the cooler.  Then I may drink you again under protest.

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