Nope, the bus just passed straight by. Good thing I managed a photo at least.
Volendam is actually a lakeside town northwest of Amsterdam. Interestingly, the freshwater lake used to be an inland sea. After the construction of a dam across the mouth of the sea, the continuous influx of freshwater from a river gradually diluted the sea to freshwater.
The town is very picturesque and looked like a great place for retirement. According to our guide, Volendam is a very closely-knit community; houses and businesses are only sold to those within the community. Guess we won't be seeing any immigrants or franchise chains here.
Traditional Dutch sailboats
For you, LH.
Traditional Volendam clothing
The town is known for the white pointy and winged caps people see in stereotypical depictions of Dutch women.
The town is known for the white pointy and winged caps people see in stereotypical depictions of Dutch women.
Full confession: The group, including me, did go to a costume shop and everyone got dressed in traditional Volendam clothing, complete with wooden clogs. But those photos will never make the public domain, not if I have anything to say about it.
Haha, thanks for the photo of that sailboat.
ReplyDeleteThe food looks really really tasty! Must have been nice eating those while surrounded by the beautiful scenery.
Just don't save those costume shop photos to some kind of cloud storage system, and I think you should be fine.
The food was great. The restaurant is well known for its smoked eels so we actually had a short tour of the smokery beforehand. The owner/guide took us through the smoking process, which his family has been doing for generations.
ReplyDeleteMy fav. dish was probably the fish (cod?) simmered in butter. The fries weren't bad either. Funny thing is that I don't remember much of the scenery, just that it was really sunny that day.