[NETHERLANDS 2015] Edam & Marken

On my last day in the Netherlands, I decided to visit Edam and Marken. Commonly known as the Waterland area, Edam, Volendam and Marken are often visited together in a day tour. You can get a Waterland Day Ticket to visit these 3 places, which was what I did since it enables you to take the trains in Amsterdam as well as the public buses.

There are options of following a tour to the Waterland area, but instead of following a tour, I decided to just take the bus to visit Edam and Marken because these two places sounds like the kind of places I'd love to visit. I skipped Volendam on this visit since it sounded a bit too touristy for my taste (nothing wrong in it being touristy, I just thought it wasn't for me).

Be sure to make note of the bus schedules as well as the bus numbers - there are apps shows you which bus goes where as well as their respective timings, which will be useful. When in doubt, just ask the drivers as they are super helpful :) (Plus the bus stops are super confusing for me for some reason.) One of the bus driver even stopped the bus to let me know that I should get off at this particular station because I've missed my previous stop - if he didn't let me know, I'm pretty sure I would've just gone back on the bus back to Amsterdam lol.

The visit to these two places definitely exceeded my expectation - I can go so far to say that in terms of the landscapes, I much prefer the Waterland area compared to Amsterdam. (In terms of attractions though, Amsterdam still wins.) Highly recommended if you have an extra day or two and you're a bit bored of Amsterdam.

Edam

This is the bus platforms at Edam where you would wait for your respective buses

Dude, where do I sign up for the house-and-boat-package?

Seriously, it seems like everyone has a boat???

Obligatory selfie

This is similar to Amsterdam, non?

Someone's ready for Christmas

Marken

Having had my fill of Edam, I then made my way to Marken. Marken is my favourite place out of the two, hands-down! Marken gives you the impressions of a rustic countryside living, and the walk around the area is my favourite - they even have a walking path along the coastline! Can you imagine having a daily morning walk along the coast?

Had chips at the above building, which is actually a restaurant!

These chips are seriously THE BEST THING EVER especially during winter, with the mayonnaise and all <3 Also, I have a bad eating habit whenever I travel alone, and this was my breakfast and lunch. Yeah I know, I'm trying to work on that.

I took a stroll around the Marken area trying to find the infamous Marken Lighthouse (you can call it getting lost, but again, it doesn't sound as nice).

While I was in Edam & Marken, I noticed that people were really friendly - most of the people I encountered would smile, but some would even go a step up and give you a friendly "hello" with a 1000kW smile. I was infected to follow their way while I was in Edam & Marken and just smiled like a fool and said "hello" to every stranger I passed by - you don't get that kind of friendliness in Amsterdam, that's for sure. (Plus, it would be pretty tiring to do it in Amsterdam, the city with the densest population in the world!)

You know that Robert Frost poem about the road less taken? Yeah, that poem aptly described my situation in this case.

I'm preetttyy sure I'm trespassing across someone's farmland...

Ahhhh, at last, the light at the end of the metaphorical tunnel! After a 30-minutes walk through someone's farmland probably (sorry I was accidentally trespassing!) I finally saw the silhouette of the Marken Lighthouse.