Best of the Dutch Countryside: Zaanse Schans and Beyond 🇳🇱

Beyond the hustle and bustle of Amsterdam lives the serene beauty of the Dutch countryside. Home to quaint fishing villages, lush green fields, and charming windmills that make you feel as if you've gone back in time. Renowned for its cheese, the countryside is dotted with busy cheese farms that showcase the process of this Dutch staple as well as the many cows that graze the panorama of pastoral greenery. For the next 24 hours, we'll get the chance to experience a bit of the Dutch countryside with some cheese tasting, clog making, and we're going to be able to see those windmills as well. This is actually my second time to Amsterdam, so one of my core memories growing up was actually tasting the cheese over in the Dutch countryside, and it was mind-blowing, honestly, at the time. So I'm really excited to try this cheese, but I think we need to head out, so let's go. Hello. Good morning. We have made it to our first stop of the day. We are in the small fishing village of Marken, and what's interesting is that it used to be a fishing village in salt water, but as they were managing their water, as they do in the Netherlands, it changed to fresh water all around this area. So I guess they weren't able to fish like they used to, which is kind of sad, but now it's a big tourist spot, and it's a very cute town. But because it's King's Day, I believe there's some sort of parade or something going on just around the corner. This is so cute. So apparently the population of this village is about 1,700 people, and that was probably about half of the town right there in that parade. That was so cool. Yeah, that was awesome. We're walking around, and we're looking up at all their traditional houses, and most of them are green and black, but I just love how unified they all look. That was quite a lovely first stop, and it was actually pretty cool to see all the locals celebrating King's Day and just dressed in orange and having a fantastic time. I wish I could stay even longer because they look like they have live music coming and just so many fun activities planned for the day. And the food! The food smelled amazing. Yeah, we were walking by some of the street vendors, and the scents that were wafting around the air, oh my gosh, it made my mouth water. But now we are hopping back on the bus, and we are heading over to a cheese farm. Cheese time! I'm getting kind of hungry. Yeah, me too. So this is a more modern cheese farm, and they have a lot of cows out back, but they have this machine that will milk the cows for them, and the cows are lining up. Like when they feel like they need to get milked, they just line up, and then they go into this machine, and it releases the milk. And there's the milk right there. Yeah. Wow. We're making cheese from cow milk, goat milk, and sheep milk. Every morning, we start with 300 liters of milk in this container, and we heat it up to 30 degrees. We are currently in the cheese tasting room, and there are so many different kinds of cheese. Of course, they specialize in Gouda cheese, but they also have cow, sheep, and goat milk cheese, and just endless, endless flavors. Like things that I didn't even know existed, like lavender cheese, asparagus cheese, truffle cheese. Oh my goodness. We are in cheese heaven. So we just stopped at the dairy farm slash cheese shop, and this place, Henry Willig, has been making cheese for the past 50 years. They had so many different flavors to choose from. We decided to go with a smoked cheese, which is definitely a lot stronger of a flavor, and a truffle cheese, because truffle is just amazing, and that one would go really well on pasta. But I've been super excited to come to this place, and now that I got to try all those cheeses, I am definitely ready for lunch, which is going to be our next stop. This afternoon, we are having lunch in Volendam, and we've come down to this little fish shack that specializes in this thing right here. They have a really delicious smoked eel, and I guess it's just the smoked eel on this pillowy soft piece of bread, and then we also got some kibble-ing. Yes, we got it just by itself, but also on a sandwich. Yep, and if you don't remember what kibble-ing is, it is deep fried pieces of cod. It comes with this lemony herb mayonnaise sauce. Yes. And what's kind of funny about the eel sandwich that Claire tried to do earlier, is unlike the herring sandwich, which comes with pickles and onions, the eel one is not recommended to have it with onions, because we had said, like, oh, can we have it with onions? They're like, no, no, no, no, no. You've got to try it on its own. Yeah, completely plain, this is the best way to go. So I'm really excited to try it. Yeah, it looks really good. Let's give this one a try first. All right, go for it. Yes. Drop the eel. Oh my god, the eel is falling out. Let me plop it right back in. Wow, that's a firm piece of eel. Okay, here it goes. Hard to tell that there's even a difference between this smoked eel and smoked salmon, you know? Whoa. Very good. Yeah, it literally just tastes like smoked salmon. Whoa. It's really good. That bread is soft. The meat of the eel is a little bit firmer than salmon. But not as firm as I expected it to be. Mm. That's really good. So good. Yeah. Everything. I saw her dipping these pieces of fish in the batter and frying it fresh, so I know it hasn't been sitting around. Mm. This is fish that just melts in your mouth. Oh, wow. And also, Volendam is known for their seafood, and that's why we wanted to come and get the seafood. Back in the day, Volendam was actually a fishing village, but when they added, just like the last time we went to, the dike, in order to block off the water, the entire surrounding area turned into a lake, so they couldn't fish anymore because it turned into fresh water. So for dessert, we decided to get a Stroopwafel, which is something I really wanted yesterday, but the Stroopwafel shop that we went to was closed, so I've had to wait much longer to finally get another bite. And this one's chocolate dip. Yes. And this one has chocolate. Mm-hmm. All right. Go ahead. Ooh, this one's even gooier than the first one we had. Delicious. So I can tell, ever since we came to the Netherlands, I've been walking around a lot more. I'm actually a little bit sore from all the walking we're doing, so this is definitely a nice little treat. Yeah, we woke up this morning, and Chad was like, are you sore? And I'm like, no. My boots are heavier. He keeps saying that. And I have all the gear on me. Yeah, Chad's like, my hiking boots are just so heavy that I'm so sore by the end of the I have the ankle-high ones. This is my first Heineken beer in the Netherlands, and it tastes pretty good. I must say. We decided to sit back and just look out at the waterfront, because we still have a little bit of time before our tour continues on. And this is really relaxing. I think a lot of people are out celebrating King's Day. Everyone's got drinks, everyone's got food, and everyone is having a good time. Same with us. I'm in the cup. Can you see I'm in the cup? We have just made it to the town of Edam, and there are about 7,000 citizens in this town right now. This is the town that's famous for that Edam cheese. And we actually got a taste of this cheese when we were over in the Yucatan. We had this dish that featured it, and we had it in a little taco. And I'm hoping we can try it today, but I don't know if we will be able to. The cheese or the taco? The cheese. I don't know if it's on the itinerary. We might see it though. Fingers crossed. I really want to try it again. So ever since we learned about Edam cheese in Merida, I honestly thought that it was going to be more of like a farm village vibe, but this entire city is way more built up than I expected, and it's a lot less of a port town than I had thought. So it's very pretty, very historic, kind of blew my expectations out of the water there. Yeah, for some reason it actually reminds me of southern France, like Île-sur-le-Sorgue. You remember that town? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, that's what it kind of reminds me of, especially with the water and the quaint little buildings that line the waterfront. We did not get to try Edam cheese here in Edam, but I actually completely forgot we tried Edam cheese when we were at that cheese farm. So I already have it in my stomach, but it has been a beautiful day, and we have one last stop before we head back to Amsterdam, and we're going to go and see those windmills that I've been very, very excited to see. We've made it to the windmills, and it is such a picturesque day. There are some little ducklings waddling behind us, and the windmills are turning, and it's just, oh, it's like a storybook. Yeah, this is definitely a great way to be ending our tour for the day, but apparently you can go and watch some clog makers, and also go inside of a few of the windmills, and they're used for a variety of different things, but I believe the most famous reason was that they were used to pump water from the lower canals up into the main lake area just to help from flooding, because that's like the story of the entire Netherlands. Yes, they're always talking about how it's very, very wet, and they've worked so, so hard to make it a more habitable land. As we've been driving around the Dutch countryside, it's hard to believe that crops fail to grow in such green fields that seem to go on forever, and as we briefly mentioned before, it's because the land is simply just too wet. Our guide was explaining how most of these fields are used for livestock to graze, and to make this land more livable for humans, the Dutch have had to create an extensive network of water management techniques to prevent the land from flooding. These historic windmills have been essential in reclaiming the land from the sea, and giving the countryside a chance to be something other than what Mother Nature deemed it to be. One hot chocolate with cream. Okay, thank you. That's three euro, please. Okay, perfect. And you also get a biscuit with your hot chocolate. Thank you, thank you very much. And I wish you a nice day, you're welcome. Thank you. So this windmill sold some hot chocolate, and we got it with whipped cream, and we got a free biscuit as well. The last sip. That was the most perfect cup of hot chocolate I think I've ever had. It was perfectly hot, and the cream was delicious, and the biscuit that we didn't expect. I'm pretty sure I could smell that hot chocolate from like... A mile away. I don't want to say a mile, because I don't think it's actually a mile, but maybe a quarter of a mile away. I'm like, what is that chocolatey smell? We found out it's hot chocolate. I thought it was going to be like cookies or something. But now we're walking over to the clog making hut, and go see how those wooden shoes are made. As the final stop of the tour, we were able to watch a clog making demonstration, which was super cool. And apparently they have been wearing clogs here in the Netherlands for about a thousand years. And they've definitely perfected their technique, because it only took, what, like a minute? Yeah, because they were kind of mixing traditional and modern techniques. And we were able to watch them make a pair, or not a pair, but a single clog in like five minutes. It was just so quick. And I really want to try clogs at some point. Apparently they're best worn with woolen socks. But that was just a wonderful finale. And overall, this tour has been an amazing value. Yes. Like the amount that you got to see, and just the cost of it. It really was an incredible value. I feel like I finally got to understand the Netherlands, and Holland, and the history, and all of it. Like it all just connects a lot better after going on this tour. Yeah. I don't know. I feel like I can appreciate the country as a whole a lot more. Right. If you like the outdoors, if you like food, it's got a little bit of everything. So if you're interested, we'll link this tour in the description box below. We highly, highly recommend it. But with all that said, we are pretty tuckered out, and we are going to go and get some rest. We're heading off to another country tomorrow. So if you want to see where we go next, hit subscribe as we travel to 50 countries around the world. And I guess we'll just catch you all next time. See you guys.