volendam
Volendam.. i read about it, i watched several TV programs of it and i listen to the music of the artist coming from this special place, but visit the place I've never did it, till now. Volendam..famous of all the famous bands like "the cats","BZN" and artist like Jan smit, Nick en Simon and Piet veerman ( you are thinking now who are these people) but they are big names in holland. Volendam is also well known for its distinctive music, which is called Palingsound in reference to Volendam's status as fishing village. OK you like it or you don't.
We had two options to go to Volendam, over the highway or crossing the smaller roads and cross the ijsselmeer over the dijk. We chose the last one, and during this trip, we found names of villages we never heard before.
We parked our car outside the center of Volendam and walked through the small streets to the most touristic side, the old harbour and the dijk. On the houses at the dijk we saw signs whit the text "tourist welcome, busses not", and this is the problem where the people of volendam struggle with, they are happy with the tourist but they want to make a statement for the government to solve the problem of all these busses crossing the dijk and harbour of this place.
We walked over the dijk through the harbour to the new harbour and the holiday parc marinapark hotel Volendam, a nice in volendam style build holiday parc , it's a park of the dutch organisation Roompot holiday's. We left the dijk and visit the old streets behind the dijk, and that is a different view. Lot's of houses need a touch of paint and restauration, but it was nice to see this different part of Volendam.
Volendam is worth a visit, but if you are planned to pay a visit of this city, take the time, or make plans to visit the surrounding places like Hoorn, Enkhuizen , Medemblik or the island Marken
