On the river Zaan
Leaving Amsterdam we planned to travel up the river Zaan to the north of Holland. At the start of the river is the town of Zaandam (a city that received city rights in 1811, situated in the province of North Holland, Netherlands, located on the river Zaan, just north of Amsterdam) and after less than an hour of motoring we moored up in the marina for the night. The marina was not really geared up for our size, we should have been in the one next door but the guys were really helpful and stuck us on the end of the moorings even though we partially blocked the exit.
Zaandam turned out to be really strange, almost like a concept town (check out the pictures below). We enjoyed our walk around, it was an interesting place with the high street either side of a canal. The waterways and features always seems to add a new dimension to the surrounding areas and the Netherlands has no shortage of these environments.
After we left Zaandam we headed north towards Alkmaar (is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, located in the province of North Holland and well known for its traditional cheese market.) where there is a lovely set of historic windmills on the way – unfortunately there was nowhere for us to stop as there is only one mooring and at that point it was occupied. Maybe we will pass that way later and get a chance to stop and look round.
(There was a bridge just before the windmills which was tight, but we chose not to ask for it to be lifted and tentatively edged our way forward. Slightly more clearance on one side so we hugged the side of the bridge and inched forward. In the end there was a good 2 inches clear, phew!)
We arrived in Alkmaar and immediately found a nice mooring on the wharf where we thought we would spend the next two nights. The town was really interesting with more cafes than I have ever seen in a town before, even one in the church. Nicki got distracted by a cheese museum so I went for a wander – so many interesting streets. A particular bonus with this town was that it has a lovely park area where the dogs could wander off lead, and it was reasonably close to our mooring. Alkmaar just keeps getting better and better.
As it turned out, we were enjoyed Alkmaar so much we opted to stay a further couple of nights. Alkmaar was a really quiet place (except at our mooring, which seemed to be next to a chiming bell which rang out every fifteen minutes all day and ALL night), but with the cheese market taking place on the Friday, the Harbourmaster asked us to move into a small harbour nearby – quite a nice location in front of the restaurants, and as it was too cold for people to be dining outside it was not intrusive at all. The only issue was that we were now in shadow, so no solar input to speak of and also no satellite reception.
The afternoon of the third day, Nicki took herself off to see the Beatles Museum which she thoroughly enjoyed and spent a couple of hours wandering round the exhibits, and then that evening we went out to see how the town looked at night, and got a few nice pics. (One particular street seemed a bit shady – I’m sure we had walked down the street in the day time already, but now it was a full on red light area. I thought it was just Amsterdam that had that sort of setup!) We decided to stop at a bar for a drink and to people-watch, but it was quite cold and the idea of sitting outside did not really appeal until we noticed that the outside venues in the market square were really well heated, just seemingly no free tables. Luckily, Nico, a London lad working over here, said we could join him at his table and before we realised it we had been chatting away till gone midnight and then only because the bar had to stop serving outside. A nice evening in good company.
On the day of the cheese market there were ten times the number of people hat normally seemed to be around – obviously a very popular event for the region – so much so that we started to panic that we would not be able make our obligatory stop for drinks. We needn’t have worried though, and found a very nice square outside of an old convent where we were able to stop in relatively peaceful surroundings in the middle of the town. Then back to the boat for our final evening in Alkmaar.
As it turned out however, Saturday turned out to be very windy and very cold, so with no rush to leave, we delayed our departure yet again, this time for just one more day – after all, we had to leave at some point.