Tour de Pays-Bas Day 1: Amsterdam to Purmerend

And away we go! We’re officially off on our great biking adventure through parts of the Netherlands. Our starting point is close to Amsterdam Centraal Station, where we meet Ben from Cycle Classic Tours, who hooks us up with two “touring bikes” that remind us of our own wheels back at home. (Considering the last time we biked considerable distances between Dutch destinations was via Justin’s parents’ three-speed heavy city bicycles, we’re already incredibly excited. The difference is tremendous as we cruise the first couple of hundred metres to our first stop.)

Amsterdam - Monnickendam: 18.1 km
Google Maps time: 61 minutes   Our time: 85 minutes

But our first step is actually on water, with an epic ferry ride that will take us all the way from Amsterdam Centraal to Amsterdam Noord … in about five minutes. Not to take anything away from it! This super quick ride is a nice respite from the crowds and overall busyness of Amsterdam. We couldn’t believe that there was a whole world of treasured villages and scenic sites awaiting us just north of Amsterdam when we last made this trip 11 years ago on our honeymoon. So we’re not completely unfamiliar with this stretch of the journey but we wanted to revisit this part of the Netherlands and thought it might be best to go a little easy on our first day out.

Monnickendam - Volendam: 8.5 km

Google Maps time: 26 minutes   Our time: 32 minutes

If you’re looking for a complete retreat from the crowds of Amsterdam, our next stop isn’t necessarily for you: Volendam. To be honest, it’s the kind of place we would normally avoid ourselves after hearing about the massive number of daytrippers who descend upon it every day of the year. But we’re curious as to what makes Volendam such a big draw. And we can see why as we bike through the charming residential stretch that takes you into the majestic harbour.

Yes, there are big crowds and a lot of shops and cafés that cater to them. But they are all remarkably tasteful and actually rather inviting (and all offer a spectacular view of the harbour). What’s most impressive is how the town weathers this massive daily influx of tourists while seemingly maintaining a local vibe (according to Justin’s mom, Volendammers are fiercely loyal and proud of their hometown and have no intention to ever leave). And this is something we also admire about Amsterdam, which is estimated to receive as much as 10 million visitors every year. It still maintains a strong identity of its own (to be discussed in future Borrel posts!). While crowds walk by, residents are tending to their front gardens or enjoying an afternoon borrel on their stoops, seemingly undisturbed by tourists taking selfies close to their property.

Gerookte paling from Smit-Bokkum in Monnickendam

But the highlight of Volendam for us? Gerookte paling! Dutch smoked eel has long been a favourite of ours and for the best (and freshest!) version of this delicacy we’ve ever tasted, we go to the legendary Smit-Bokkum rokerij, where they smoke eel fresh every day. We enjoy an amazing lunch on their harbourside veranda: a plate of smoked eel on toast, as well as our first kibbeling (battered and deep-fried white fish chunks) of the trip. The eel is so buttery, the toast itself doesn’t need any butter. It’s simple but delicious. Gerookte paling has long been the white whale (um, eel?) of Borrel’s kitchen. We’d love to serve it, but the imported variety is very expensive and has a short shelf life. We’ve looked into making it ourselves, but the variety of eel is not the same in Canada and we haven’t even been able to find yellow eel (which we’ve been told is an acceptable substitute). So the best we can do is point you to places like this in the Netherlands for your gerookte paling fix!

Volendam - Edam: 3 km

Google Maps time: 9 minutes   Our time: 15 minutes

Just when we thought things couldn’t get more picturesque than the historic harbour views of Monnickendam and Volendam, we roll into Edam. Known of course for its cheese with that iconic red wax covering, Edam is a sweet little maze of narrow streets and canals. Its most famous destination is probably the charming cheese museum and shop, but what struck us most were the beautiful wooden bridges and the gorgeous canal-side gardens that so many of the residents maintain so carefully. Unfortunately, we can’t stay long as we have to get to Justin’s aunt and uncle’s place for dinner!

Edam - Purmurend: 10.6 km

Google Maps time: 36 minutes Our time: 52 minutes

We are fortunate to be spending the night at hotels for most of our trip. But as we were in the neighbourhood and it had been far too long since we last visited, our first night was spent at my Tante Frances and Oom Harry’s place in Zuidoost Beemster, Purmurend. As a kid, Justin was over there a lot to see his cousins, Laura and Maarten. And then in his teenage years, he’d usually go over for a night when we visited and peruse Tante Frances’ huge book collection and get away from his parents to stay up late watching TV and maybe try to sneak a beer or two out of the fridge (kids, right?!).

In any case, we feel terrible getting in late as Frances has the Indonesian takeout food all ready to go and Laura, her husband Christian and their three adorable boys were ravenous. But it wasn’t our fault! We encountered a little something en route called tegenwind (headwind) and this new nemesis would haunt us for the rest of this trip and throw a wrench at any meticulous scheduling we had mapped out. (More on that below!)

We enjoy a lovely dinner and chat with Frances afterward, including discussion about Justin’s opa’s Indonesian restaurant and hotel he ran back in the 1960s. (More on that in the future as well!) Thank you Tante Frances and Oom Harry for your generous hospitality!  

And thank YOU for reading all of this! We promise not all entries will be this long!

CAFÉ OF THE DAY: One of the “research” components of this trip is visiting new bruin cafés, proeflokaals and eetcafés to inspire our own back in Toronto. Honestly, this is the way we tend to travel anyway whenever we visit someplace new. Find a cozy-looking spot for a drink and go from there. Bars/pubs/bruin cafés for us have always been places where people come together for friendly conversation, the exchanging of ideas and for contemplating the day. … OK, we don’t want to sugarcoat it. Sure, these places also see a fair share of overintoxication, arguments and childish behaviour. But it’s the former that attracts and inspires us and also gives us a sense of the culture and community that we’re in. And bruin cafés (so named because of their ancient brown wood interiors) do it as well as their British and Irish counterparts. … That said, we didn’t actually make it to a bruin café on Day 1. But expect many visits to come in our upcoming posts!

THINGS WE MISSED: While we didn’t have time for the visit this year, we would highly recommend visiting Broek in Waterland, which is en route to Monnickendam and a great destination in its own right. There we enjoyed a pannekoek at de Witte Swaen and jumped in a whisper boat where, despite getting rained on, we were able to pull up to a dockside wine bar to dry off and sample a glass from an incredible variety of wines. It was like something out of a dream – and now we can’t seem to find that wine bar listed anymore, so it’s fair if you don’t want to believe us!

LEARN FROM THE AMATEURS: A little thing we learned from Day 1 that will have a big impact on our entire trip: tegenwind (headwind). The Netherlands is flat. Very flat. And that should make for easy biking, right? Well, our dear friend Casper Hoedemaekers — who makes far more serious annual cycling treks three times as long as ours on his racing bike — would later inform us that the strong winds in the Netherlands can make biking an immense challenge even for the highest calibre professional riders. So much so that tegenwind has been dubbed “the Dutch mountains.” While the first two hours on our bikes were a dream, en route to Justin’s aunt and uncle’s place in Purmerend we got hit hard. And a ride that should’ve taken 40 minutes was nearly twice that due to the intense winds blowing against us. Be sure to take tegenwind into account when planning a long-distance bike journey here – the Netherlands is a windy country! While urban areas and tree-lined routes offer some protection from the wind, the headwinds tend to be the worst when biking through open fields.