Starts with K…

Having done a day trip to Delft a couple years earlier and really liked it, we were looking for another town that would be just as charming.

We looked into the area around Edam including Marken and Volendam, making up a collection of cities known as Waterland.  We had a lofty plan of hitting all three of the towns in the historic area.  Turns out the plans were much more ambitious than we were. But hey, it’s vacation, one is allowed a bit of sleeping in and a relaxed pace.   So we only had time for one, and were headed to Edam.

We took the bus from the train station in Amsterdam.  It was a relatively quick trip, about 20 minutes or so.  The bus dropped us off at a just outside the center of the town, so it was a quick walk down cute, narrow streets to reach the main square.

As we made our way to the center, we were greeted by hanging art displays that many cities in Europe seem to have taken to.  In this case, it was a series of colorful umbrellas.  It definitely added some color since the skies were rather grey.

We followed the brick-lined streets until we reached the main canal connecting to the center of town and the perfect place to have lunch.

After a typical Dutch lunch (open-faced cheese sandwich)and coffee to finish, we continued to explore Edam.  It was smaller and more compact than I expected, so our exploring we was easy.

Edam is a cheese town, and evidence of that is scattered about. There was once a major cheese market where producers would bring their cheese to have it weighed and readied for sale.  The old cheese market and scales are now a museum and tourist site, so of course, we made sure to check it out.

Sadly that is not real cheese on that cart!

More cheese on display and for sale along the canal

One of the interesting things we witnessed in Edam was raising of one of the canal bridges so that a boat could pass through.  Edam is a much smaller town than Amsterdam, so the main canal is also much smaller.  The canal gates seem to be operated somewhat manually, so one young man unlocked and then pressed a button to lift the bridge.  The bridge lifts, the boat passes through, the bridge comes down, and the guy runs to the next bridge to repeat the process for the boat to pass.

One of the few hotels in town, this one on the canal with its chairs on the patio looks so inviting.

It was a great day trip, and I hope to make it to Marken and the other towns of Waterland.