Photo: Hervé Simon (CC BY-SA 2.0, resized)
Things to do in Volendam
A fishing village half an hour from Amsterdam that lost its sea in 1932 and turned the loss into a living — costume, smoked eel, and a harbour that still looks the part.
- About half an hour vanuit Amsterdam
A village that lost its sea
Volendam was a herring port on the Zuiderzee, an inland arm of the North Sea that reached almost to Amsterdam. In 1932 the Dutch closed it off with a thirty-two kilometre dam, and within a few years the salt water behind it turned fresh. The herring died. So did an entire coastal economy, from Enkhuizen round to Monnickendam.
Volendam is one of the few places along that coast that came out of it in decent shape, and the reason is odd: it had already accidentally become famous. From the 1880s painters had been coming for the costume and the light — Renoir, Picasso and Signac all worked here — and the village had got used to visitors, to being photographed, and to charging for it. When the fish went, that turned out to be a second industry already up and running.
That history is why the costume studios are not a modern invention. Dressing visitors up in Volendam clothing for a photograph is about a hundred and thirty years old.
What half a day looks like
The village is small. The harbour front is a single four-hundred-metre street, and everything worth seeing is on it or one row behind. Two hours is honestly enough unless you sit down to eat.
That is why almost everyone pairs it with something, and the natural partner is across the water. The Marken ferry runs from the harbour, takes about twenty minutes, and drops you in a village that looks nothing like the one you left — black timber instead of green and white, houses raised on mounds because the sea used to come in, and a lighthouse called the Horse of Marken at the end of a long flat walk.
The alternative pairing is inland: Monnickendam, five minutes south, a smaller harbour with a carillon tower and a fraction of the visitors, and Edam ten minutes north for the canals and the cheese.
One honest warning
Volendam in August, at midday, on the harbour front, is very busy indeed. It is a narrow street and it receives coach traffic all day.
The fix is the same as everywhere else on this coast — go early, or go late in the afternoon when the day trips have turned for home and the light comes across the water instead of down onto it. The village empties out surprisingly fast after about five o’clock, and the terraces stay open.
Wat te zien
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The Dijk, the harbour front
One long row of green and white timber houses facing the water, with the old fishing fleet moored in front of it. This is the whole of the postcard Volendam and it is about four hundred metres end to end.
Tip van de chauffeur: Walk to the far end, past the last of the terraces. The crowd thins after the third restaurant and the houses get older, not newer.
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Being photographed in costume
Several studios on the harbour will dress you in full Volendam klederdracht — the winged lace cap for women, the striped jacket and cap for men — and photograph you in it. It has been done here since the 1890s, originally for painters and tourists off the Zuiderzee steamers.
Tip van de chauffeur: Faintly ridiculous, genuinely old, and the single most popular thing anyone does here. If you are going to be a tourist, be one properly.
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The Volendams Museum and the cigar-band room
A small village museum with one exceptional exhibit: a room decorated floor to ceiling in mosaics made from about eleven million cigar bands, assembled by one man over some seven years. It sounds like a footnote and it is the thing people remember.
Tip van de chauffeur: Twenty minutes, and it is the only indoor option in the village that is not a restaurant.
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Smoked eel and kibbeling
Eel smoked on the spot, herring, and kibbeling — battered cod chunks with a garlic sauce. The stalls on the dyke have been doing versions of this since the fleet still fished the Zuiderzee.
Tip van de chauffeur: Eel is oily, strong and eaten with your fingers off a paper tray. If it is not for you, kibbeling is the safe order and nobody minds.
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The boat to Marken
A twenty-minute crossing of the Markermeer to a former island of black timber houses standing on raised mounds, with a lighthouse at the far end of a two-kilometre walk. Marken was cut off by water until a causeway was built in 1957 and it still feels it.
Tip van de chauffeur: The crossing is the point as much as the destination — it is the only way most visitors see the Markermeer from the water.
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Edam, ten minutes north
The town the cheese is named after, and almost nobody stops. A proper little Dutch town of canals and drawbridges with a fraction of Volendam's crowds, and the cheese market runs on summer Wednesdays.
Tip van de chauffeur: If Volendam feels too busy, this is the escape hatch, and it is genuinely five minutes up the road.
Waar ligt het?
Dagtochten die hierheen gaan
Volendam & Monnickendam
Twee oude vissershavens aan het water, op een half uur van Amsterdam. Verse haring op de kade, geschilderde houten huizen, en het stillere stadje waar de meeste bezoekers straal voorbijrijden.
Molens & dorpen — drie stops
Onze meest geboekte volle dag. 's Ochtends werkende molens, tussen de middag haring aan de haven en 's middags het oude eilanddorp Marken — drie van de bekendste plekken van het land in één ontspannen tocht.
Veelgestelde vragen
Is Volendam touristy?
Yes, openly and without apology — it has been in the tourism business since the 1880s, when painters started coming for the costume and the light. Whether that spoils it depends on you. It is a real village of about 22,000 people with a working harbour, not a reconstruction.
Volendam or Marken — which one?
Volendam is bigger, busier and has the restaurants and the costume studios. Marken is quieter, darker in colour and more intact. Most people who have time do both, with the boat between them, and that is the version we would recommend.
Why is there no sea any more?
The Zuiderzee was closed off from the North Sea by the Afsluitdijk in 1932 and became a freshwater lake. Volendam's herring fleet lost its fishery overnight. The village had already learned to sell itself to visitors, which is a large part of why it survived and its neighbours shrank.
How long do you need?
Two hours does Volendam itself comfortably. Add the boat to Marken and you are at half a day, which is the shape most people want.
Can you drive us there from Amsterdam?
Yes — we run a private day to Volendam and Monnickendam, and a longer one that adds Zaanse Schans and Marken. Both show the price on this site before you commit.