Visiting Volendam and Marken

Thursday, August 12, 2015

Our last day again in Purmerend.  Time flies.  As Volendam and Marken are not far off and a must for every tourist to see, we (Moenie and I) take Patricia for a day out to these well-known towns.

Volendam is first on the list and next Marken.  Marken used to be an island in the Zuiderzee (Southern Sea), but since the dam was built to close of the Zuiderzee, cirumstances have changed.  The Zuiderzee is now known as the IJsselmeer (lake IJssel) and in 1957 a road has been built to connect Marken to the mainland, so now it is a peninsula. 

Volendam

 

 

Marken

Patricia wants to give me a birthday present and convinces me that I should have my photo taken in local costume.  I agree, but not without protest and the assurance that I want to be in the picture with her.  We're good friends and on holiday together so we should have something to remember it by.

Unfortunately the girls didn't check that my cap wasn't sitting the way it should and we didn't have a mirror to check ourselves in.  Besides I was pressed against the mantle piece, which pressed the cap even more forward.  Not as pretty as it could have been...

To fill in the time waiting for the picture to be processed we enjoyed a cup of coffee and Dutch apple cake with cream.  Yummy.....

 

We also went in search of two geocaches, but only one was doable.  For the second one we had to count wooden shoes in order to be able to open a padlock.  There must have been more than 300 and we didn't have the patience to count them.

The other one was fine, although the GPS sent us in the wrong direction by at least 3 to 4 m.  A friendly wave from behind a window pointed us in the right direction and the cache was soon found.

achter t hof

 

After a walk and taking the above pretty pictures we discovered a small museum with very interesting information about Marken.  There even was a slide show with English commentary for Patricia!

 

Next we walked back to the car.

And that was the end of yet another lovely afternoon.  We went home to Purmerend where we had Indonesian/Chinese take-away after which we packed our gear again and left to go home to Vreeland. However, for me goodbye is not for long, because I will be seeing Moenie and Paula shortly again.