Blogs from Enkhuizen, North Holland, Netherlands, Europe

Opening the drapes of our cabin on Thursday morning revealed the outer harbor of Enkhuizen, the Krabbershaven. It was full of sailing ship and sailboat masts, a good beginning to a morning gf exploring the open-air Zuiderzeemuseum located here. After breakfast, the shore excursion group walked through the dock area to reach the ferry landing. The ferry to the Zuiderzeemuseum took us around the point upon which Enkhuizen is situated, and a nice overview of the town was to be had. The ferry landed at the opposite end of the open-air museum from the main land entrance. Thus, our tour started from the back. The Zuiderzeemuseum is an open-air museum similar to the open-air museums in Bulgaria and Helsinki. The houses and buildings from different parts of North Holland have been brought here. The theme of ... read more

After being on the hard for a month in Lelystad it was time to take a few days and explore a nearby town located on the opposite side of the IJsselmeer (large freshwater lake created by the dyke). We had a pleasant sail to Enkhuizen with good wind and a beautiful sunny day – what a nice change after being out of the water for so long. Many villages were recommended to us, but in looking at the chart we decided that Enkhuizen would not be too far out of our way. We know that time is going by and we need to get to the coast so we can cross over to the UK before it is winter! Our friends had told us about the marina that they were staying in that was well protected ... read more

After another continental breakfast we drove to a village museum called Zuiderzee in Enkhuizen. It was similar to a place called Beamish in the North East of England,although bigger. The surroundings were great and the whole place was well laid out and a lovely place to visit. There were lots of old buildings made to look like they would have in past years. There were many shops and places of work. There was loads to see including a boat building workshop,old house with typical layouts,a cheese shop,a sweet shop,a pharmacy and much more. There was a choir singing stories of the past in Dutch and about the role women played many years ago. The ambiance was delightful and the experience was thoroughly enjoyable. Once we had left the museum we headed to a nearby restaurant where ... read more

After 8 busy days in 3 big cities, both of us needed a break. We had been going flat out, seeing as much as we could of London, Paris and Amsterdam in the short time we had there. Now that we had met up with Nana, we would slow down, and start the part of the trip where we were with family, meeting people we hadn't met before, or hadn't seen in a long time. No longer did we have to worry about what we would go to do next, because it had all been organized for us. Everyone else was going to church. We had been told the previous night that we didn't have to go because it would have been in Dutch and we wouldn't have understood it. They had left at 8.30 and ... read more

Our day started at about 7, with a shower and headed down to breakfast. People were still celebrating from the previous night. Breakfast was a self serve buffet breakfast, with cereal and toast and different types of sandwich fillings and juice on a tap. I had as much as I could because we knew that the more we had the better value for money it was. I probably had 4 or 5 bowls of cereal in the end. We went back upstairs and packed up. Nana packed up her stuff as well. We put all of our washing into a bag to give to Nana because she was going to Andijk before us so she could do the washing before we get there. We had one last look at the canals before heading to the train ... read more