A weekend in Enkhuizen and surroundings
July 30, 2007 at 6:22 PM
by Ashleigh
We spent the weekend in Enkhuizen and surrounds, staying in a family run 'camping' and visiting Sprookjeswonderland, the Zuiderzee Museum and the Bakkerij Museum. The trip was pretty quick on the amazing A7 highway, which runs from Zaandam all the way across Holland to the border with Germany. If you click the link you can see it on the map. It's a gorgeous road, and it makes you want to drive faster! We stopped just before the road goes across the dyke, called the Afsluitdijk, part of the Zuiderzee Works that holds back the sea and allows the former saltwater Zuiderzee to be the freshwater Ijsselmeer. If you click that link you can see how much land was created by damming off the Zuiderzee.
Our base was at de Gouwe Stek which is owned by the Buysman family and run in conjunction with their flower growing activities. They grow agapanthus, tulips and peonies on their farm. The camping is what's known as a 'boerencamping'. ie. a rustic campsite on a farm.
We were lucky that the family also rents out caravans and we rented their largest caravan for the two nights of the weekend.
The accomodations are basic, but clean and tidy and the best thing about a camping is that the kids quickly find friends! We took the option of breakfast from Trude and that was great - fresh warm rolls, freshly boiled farm eggs, coffee, orange juice. milk for the kids - all delivered in a picnic hamper at a reasonable hour. 9 on weekdays and 10 on Sundays! It was an ideal place to use as a base for exploring the area. You can also camp or park your own caravan at de Gouwe Stek and it's only 5 minutes drive from there to Enkhuizen itself.
The first day we visited Sprookjeswonderland. I'm sorry to say that I thought it was a bit of a waste of money. The entry price isn't high but for what the place is, really just a playground with some animations, I thought it was a bit too much. My kids were also a little bit too old for the attractions and although Joe enjoyed it, Seb was a bit disappointed. I think this is an amusement park entirely aimed at the under-4s.
Later we had dinner out at a place called Peperonata which we found by using the 'point of interest' function on our trusty navigation system.
Sadly, the navigator led us to a pizza place that no longer existed, but after I parked the car and asked some passersby where they could recommend we ended up at Peperonata, and boy, were we glad we did!
Amazing pesto, wonderful pizzas, gorgeous tiramisu, a good atmosphere, waiters who actually waited on you and one of them being a dude who looked like Crabman!
What more can you ask for?
It was awesome and the bill came to 60 euros for four of us for dinner and dessert, plus table water and soft drinks. That's pretty good for a family used to Amsterdam prices!
The next day we went to the Zuiderzee Museum. I liked it, but would have liked it more if we hadn't been to Archeon just a few weeks ago. The two have the same concept, but Archeon does it better in terms of holding one's interest.
The best part is the ferry ride. The main carpark is joined with the museum via a ferry boat ride which is awesome for the kids! You then ride the ferry back to your car at the end of your visit. It's a lovely idea and really prepares you for the feeling of isolation you get as you walk around the streets of the museum.
Looking at some of the houses in the museum I feel I shouldn't whine, ever ever again, about my cramped living conditions. Some of the houses are as small as my kitchen and they had families of 10 living in them!
Sunday we visited the Bakkerij Museum in Medemblik which is a short drive from Enkhuizen.
Medemblik is very beautiful and I'd like to take the time to visit the town again. It has a very olde-worlde feel and at times I felt like I was walking through a Cotswold high street instead of a Dutch village. The only thing that brought me back to the present (and our current country of residence) was observing that the shop names were, naturally, all written in Dutch! This made me realise just how new many parts of Holland are, and visiting a really old part of it provides a striking contrast.
The Museum itself was very sweet. The kids got to decorate cookies, we drank coffee, ate some of the museum's produce and walked around looking at some of the exhibits.
I found it especially interesting that in the beginning of the 20th century most people would only buy bread from their 'own kind' thus, if you were Protestant you bought from the Protestant baker, Catholics from the Catholic baker etc. If a Catholic baker took over a Protestant baker's premises he would hold none of the trade as the people wouldn't see him in church and thus wouldn't utilise his services. This fascinated me. I forget sometimes how forceful religion can be.
Next time we're in Medemblik I want to take the steam-tram to Hoorn. We ran out of time though, so it was back down the A7 and home!
What did you do this weekend?
Comments
Sounds wonderful! I already keep your blog in the back of my mind as a great research for exploring NL further - you've just added another great option.
Enkhuizen is a really pretty village! There are lots of other nice villages around there too like Volendam and Marken. Of course they all have their own histories of Catholics and Protestants...
Oh, Enkhuizen is gorgeous! I don't think I've been down there since Max was the size of a loaf of bread. Now whether that would be a Catholic loaf (my ex) or a Protestant loaf (my childhood religious experience) would cause controversy. LOL!
July 30, 2007 9:09 PM