DAY 1: Tempted by the Cheese of Another (Markemeer Lake)
bonus: inntel hotels amsterdam
Designed by Wilfred van Winden and opened in 2010, this hotel looks like someone took 70 typical Dutch homes (Zaanse houses) and piled them on top of one another - it must have sucked to wake up one morning and find your home had been uprooted and dropped on a pile of other homes without your permission, and you walked outside to get some fresh air and fell twelve stories to your death, if that is how it happened, of course. The facades are green but one, in reference to Monet’s painting La Maison Bleue.
Suggested duration: 5 minutes.
zaanse schans
They say this village is living in the past, but in a good way, as opposed to a “it’s over, she left you, time to move on” kind of way. The 17th through 19th century architecture and way of life is preserved by the many museums that line the town, from the baker museum to the chocolate museum, to the cheese museum, which are less museums and more just places you eat various foods but if you want to call that a museum, we’re all for it. Okay, so most of the museums are about food; well there’s other museums devoted to the various trades that elevated this town during the Industrial Revolution, but none of those museums offer food, so we’re not really interested. At the very least, you’ll want to hit up the baker museum for some fresh cookies, and then maybe the chocolate museum (you want to save your cheese quota for later today assuming you have a cheese quota) and indulge to the point that you can no longer walk, the perfect state for a scenic “koelenboot,” or cow-ship, tour - “cow-ship” referring to the way they used to transport cattle, but also a slight jab at your newfound girth - where you can view the town’s landmark lighthouses.
Suggested duration: 3 hours. Visit www.dezaanseschans.nl for more information.
volendam
Of the fishing villages along Markemeer Lake, Volendam is the most popular, which is kind of like the most popular kid in a chess club (not saying much) but it’s the personality that counts and this village packs plenty of it. If you ever wanted to learn how eels are smoked and what they sound like (said no one ever but now that you mention it, sure why not) visit the Palingsound Museum to sample some eel eats and beats, a sound which inspired a whole genre of music that’s popular in Volendam, but hasn’t picked up anywhere else - wonder why (eyeroll). After that you can choose one from among many restaurants offering the catch of the day, which is just about the freshest fish you can eat short of eating them alive. You can also visit a Cheese Factory but again, try not to indulge in cheese until the last stop. Promise it will be worth it. You made it this far, might as well wait a few more. Okay so I see you decided to jump the gun. Screw the cheese quota, you only live once. May as well die young from cheese overindulgence.
Suggested duration: 3 hours. Visit www.vvv-volendam.nl for more information.
edam
Hopefully you saved some room for dessert, and by dessert I mean cheese, because this town is famous for one thing and one thing only… cheese. You can visit one of several 18th century cheese warehouses, which sounds like a thing that should not exist, and is just as delicious as it sounds, assuming you’re not lactose intolerant. On a side note, it would suck to live here if you were lactose intolerant, though chances are natural selection has killed off the lactose intolerant people of Edam - either that or they moved. There’s not much else to do here. “I don’t exist just for your gratification. I’m more than a piece of cheese.” Sure you are.
Suggested duration: 3 hours.
STAY THE NIGHT IN: volendam or edam
DAY 2: Flower Power (Haarlem and Leiden)
Royal floraholland
One of the largest auction houses in the world is just outside of Amsterdam, in Aalsmeer, Netherlands and it’s devoted completely to flowers. But if you think the auction of flowers is all sunshine and roses, it’s completely indoors, and a scene of sheer chaos. Get there early, and watch it all unfold from an observation room, so you don’t get run over by one of dozens of tractors transporting flowers on an indoor tractor highway. You won’t be able to buy flowers but you can observe as hundreds of registered buyers bid for over twenty million flowers daily on an advanced computer system that makes flower buying look like stock and bond trading.
Suggested duration: 60 minutes. Visit www.royalfloraholland.com for opening times and more information.
bonus: teylers museum
With exhibits on art, natural history and science, this museum, the oldest in the Netherlands, is a jack of all trades, master of none. Don’t worry too much about what to see here, it’s the museum itself that’s worth the visit. Open since 1784, not much has changed in terms of the museum’s layout and design, so it’s like going back in time, except you don’t have to worry about dying of cholera.
Suggested duration: 60 minutes. Visit www.teylersmuseum.nl for tickets, opening times and more information.
bloemen route (SPRING ONLY)
The road from Haarlem to Leiden is paved with flowers, not literally of course, but the road is flanked by long stretches of flowers of multiple colors and varieties. You’ll surely be tempted to pull over and take pictures in the fields, just do your best not to get run over by other cars and also, it goes without saying, don’t stomp on the flowers; there’s always that one drunk guy, fresh out of the Heineken experience (Netherlands - Part 1). If you’re looking for a way to express yourself, you can stop off at one of the roadside stalls and buy yourself a nice flower ornament to adorn the hood of your car at the risk of blocking your view of oncoming traffic.
Suggested duration: 60 minutes.
keukenhof garden (spring only)
One of the largest flower gardens in the world, Keukenhof blatantly advertises itself as “the most beautiful spring garden in the world” which is completely subjective and not something that can be independently verified, but honestly, it’s hard to imagine a garden more beautiful than this. It’s like they planted the most beautiful colored flowers and poured food coloring all over them then sprayed LSD in the air for added effect. But beauty is fleeting so see them before their looks fade and they hit menopause.
Suggested duration: 3 hours. Visit keukenhof.nl for opening times and more information.
BONUS: corpus
Here’s your chance to go inside the human body without hopping about the Magic School Bus (seriously Mrs. Frizzle should have been fired multiple times for child endangerment), and learn how it operates at this body-shaped museum. Luckily, it's not a tour of your own body slowly decaying under the weight of yesterday’s cheese. But it’s probably not worth the price of entry. Nobody wants to learn about their body or be reminded of the need to take care of it while on vacation - the building itself is worth a visit.
Suggested duration: 5 minutes. Visit corpusexperience.nl for tickets, opening times and more information.
molen de valk
Built in 1743, this corn mill is the last remaining of the 19 mills that once bordered Leiden. With no other mills to foster reproduction, the mills of Leiden will surely go extinct, which is why efforts have been undertaken to preserve this mill, and open it as a museum, where you can learn about the life of a miller before yawning repeatedly and climbing seven stories for the best view over Leiden.
Suggested duration: 30 minutes. Visit www.visitleiden.nl for more information.
leiden’s wall formulae
In response to the wall poems of Leiden (Day 3), physicists Jan van der Molen and Ivo van Vulpen wanted to show there is also a beauty to physics too; of course none of us understand physics, so they commissioned artists to represent equations of scientists who have worked in Leiden, including Albert Einstein and Jan Oort. We still don’t understand what’s happening but boy is it pretty.
Suggested duration: 1-2 hours. Visit muurformules.nl for more information.
ziljpoort
A popular meeting point, Ziljpoort is one of three remaining of the eight original Middle Aged gates surrounding the city. (Unlike Molen de Valk, they have the option to reproduce and make more gates but they just don’t like eachother - “I wouldn’t have sex with you if you were the last gate in Leiden.”) Built in 1667, it once housed a playwright and poet group, before being turned to a school for poor children (probably the bastard children of the previous playwrights and poets). It now holds a brasserie, a great place for dinner or cocktails on the water, while yelling obscenities at passing boats, depending how many cocktails you’ve had.
Suggested duration: 60 minutes. Visit www.visitleiden.nl for more information.
STAY THE NIGHT IN: leiden
DAY 3: Hard on the Outside, Soft on the Inside (Leiden)
burcht van leiden
Built around 1150, this fortress is older than the city itself. Soon after it was built, homes were built around it, extending outward to form the foundation of Leiden. Of course, a fortress in the middle of the city and not around it completely defeats the purpose of a fortress but it became a symbol of Leiden - strong on the inside but weak and completely vulnerable to attack on the outside - and now serves as a public park with enough seating to go around and superb views of the Hooglandsekerk and greater Leiden.
Suggested duration: 60 minutes. Visit www.visitleiden.nl for more information.
bonus: leiden city hall
After the original city hall burnt down in 1929, the architect of the new city hall commissioned a little known artist, at that time, MC Escher for five works, which can only be described as early-psychedelic. Fortunately he wasn’t asked to design the whole building.
Suggested duration: 30 minutes. Visit www.visitleiden.nl for more information.
Leiden wall poems
Roses are red, violets are blue, the streets of Leiden are laden with brick, and maybe some poems too. To see them all would take a day, upward of two; perhaps for your purposes, a selection will do. Find the nearest info booth, have them map it out for you, or let the universe be your guide, stumble upon a unique few, written in the language of the poet, with translation if you don’t know it.
Suggested duration: 2 hours.
national museum of antiquities
The official archeological museum of the Netherlands holds an extensive collection of artifacts from ancient Egypt and Near East, classical Rome and Greece, and prehistoric to medieval Netherlands. There’s a lot to choose between; when in doubt, you can’t go wrong with mummies, assuming they don’t come back to life and eat you but the crown jewel of the museum is the 2000 year old Temple of Taffeh, uprooted from Egypt; maybe that’s precedence for uprooting homes and putting them where they don’t belong.
Suggested duration: 60 minutes. Visit www.rmo.nl for opening times and more information.
botanical garden
The oldest botanical garden in the Netherlands and one of the oldest in the world houses an impressive array of exotic flora, once heralded individually for their medicinal uses, now noted collectively for its therapeutic effect. Nothing like a quiet walk in the park.
Suggested duration: 60 minutes. Visit www.hortusleiden.nl for more information.
leiden observatory
The second oldest celestial observatory in the world, the first being the Vatican Observatory, still houses four original telescopes, dating back to 1838, though aside from a small visitor center, the rest of this beautiful space is wasted on the school’s law faculty.
Suggested duration: 60 minutes. Visit www.universiteitleiden.nl for opening times and more information.