If, like us, you don't only want to visit historic sites and museums, hooray, you're in the right place! We think you'll like this post. Amsterdam's fairytale towns...
Amsterdam was the second stop of our New Year route, and we gave it two days. You might say, "Two days isn't enough for Amsterdam!" Yes, you're right, but we usually explore city centres at a brisk pace. Because of the usual time-off situation we'd be able to see Amsterdam in a short time in the same way; otherwise you should get lost in the streets of every city... This time, exploring with 2 local friends also sped us up a lot!
Look at everything we fitted into these two days: these wonderful towns near Amsterdam that we'd heard about for years, really wanted to go to and dreamed of walking through together! We wanted to share them with you too. Come on, take your loved one and grab a ticket to Amsterdam, which has flights every day! Your romantic holiday route is on us
The weather in winter isn't very suited to exploring Amsterdam, and the days are short, but we pushed our luck and went. If you like, you can also give this route a chance in spring or autumn; it will be very pleasant in the spring months.
Getting Around
You can do the route by renting a car, or, like us, on a low budget by public transport. While exploring these fairytale towns, our choice was to buy the Amsterdam&Region Travel Ticket . We paid €18.5 per person for 1 day, and it's free on all transport in Amsterdam, such as trains, trams and buses. It's also valid on transport run by GVB and EBS and on night buses.
If, like us, you have 1 day, you can start early and make the most of it. As you know, it gets light late and dark early. On 28 December 2017, sunrise and sunset were at 08.51 - 16.34! Now for the details of this lovely route: 5 towns in 1 day!!
While we're at it, I'd like to give a quick tip. For those who build their own routes, the starting point I find most important, my habit, is this: I star the places I'll go to on google.maps, and after that it's much easier to work out the shortest route.
Early in the morning, at 07.20, we took bus 391 from the bus stop behind Amsterdam Central and reached the entrance of Zaanse Schans village at 08.10. After finishing our visit, the destination was Zaandam, very close to Zaanse Schans! Again you can take the same bus 391, get off at the Het Mennistenerf stop and walk to Zaandam. If, like us, you buy the Amsterdam Regional Travel Card, you can travel both comfortably and with internet.
We gave almost two hours each to both Zaanse Schans and Zaandam. If you don't want to rush yourself, you can start the route we followed after Zaandam from Amsterdam Central.
To start our second route, we first went back to Amsterdam Central. After wandering around a bit and taking photos, we continued our route from the image below, prepared by Amsterdam travel guides.
Go Dutch
Who wouldn't want to wander this lovely route, right?!
If you're going to do the routes in this image without going to Zaandam and Zaanse Schans, you can buy 1 ticket for the whole day online or at the train station in Amsterdam. If you buy it in Amsterdam it's €10; if you buy it online you save €1 and get it for €9.
Now let's continue our route.
From Amsterdam Central you can get to Edam in 30 minutes on bus 314. Then, following the blue route, you can go to Volendam and Marken in turn. Buses run almost every 20 minutes. When you buy the EBS day card, don't forget to ask for the map. If you buy it online, don't forget to save the map on your phone!
As you can see from the map, there are 3 routes in total. Maybe not if you go in winter like us, but if you go in summer you can fit all 3 routes into one day. On the buses you rest, you enjoy the view, and thanks to free Wi-Fi you can stay live on social media.
Now click for the posts where I describe them in detail: Zaanse Schans Travel Guide and The Magnificent Four: Edam-Volendam-Marken-Monnickendam Travel Guide !
9 km
10 km