Day Trip to The Zuiderzee Museum

Say all the bad things you want about social media, but sometimes it is clutch! During the fall break, a friend posted photos of her family's outing to Zuiderzee Museum, which I had never heard of. A quick search later, I learned that it was about an hour north, free with our museum cards, and having a special festival with old time Dutch carnival rides for the herfstvakantie. Totally sold! The apple picking crew convened again and we spent a really nice day being kids again. We may not have gotten to leave the country this year, but we certainly traveled back in time! 

You park at the ticket office, walk through a dyke and wait for the ferry that takes you past the harbor of Enkhuizen to the entrance of the open air museum. 

The body of water shown on this map, the Ijsselmeer, used to be completely open to the sea. There were fishing villages all around, but they were prone to flooding. So the Dutch water geniuses built a series of dykes, blocking the area off from the sea. This of course posed a problem for the fishing villages and fishermen that lost their livelihoods in their villages and had to move. A number of fishing villages disappeared and a number of buildings were rescued and moved to this open air museum. So you wander around and can pass in and out of former homes (tiny!!) and workshops. It was super quaint. 

Enkhuizen Harbor

The rides were the hit of the day and were spread out across the grounds so we could take it all in. 

Maeve and her buddy Luisa

yummy smoked fish for lunch

Kids could dress up and wear costumes around the park

There is a lot going on in this photo!

A hidden playground with lovely fall foliage

I was the only adult who wanted to ride the rides. I wasn't going to miss out on the fun!

Zuiderzee museum has the outdoor open air part and then you can walk to the edge of town and go into the indoor museum. Here there were exhibits of old fishing ships, furniture of the times, clothes and more. My favorite was the black and white video from the 1910s showing the arrival of Sinterklaas in an old fishing village. Everyone was dressed in traditional clothes. 

A typical cupboard where children would sleep. The sign claimed 3-4 kids slept in the bed and a baby slept in the box Maeve is peering into! The houses were so small, so they had to get creative! 

I really like this look (minus the hat!)

A really full, fun day. We walked back through the open air museum, rode a few more rides and then took the ferry back. 

Herftsvakantie 2020 Staycation

For our 7th Herfstvakantie (fall break), we hadn't made any plans. I was supposed to be in Denver, celebrating the wedding of aunt Rach and when that was postponed, we were holding out hope that the borders would open and family could come over to visit. WORST case scenario, we would take a road trip through Germany if we couldn't go anywhere else (I know how snobby that sounds!). Still, I didn't book anything, feeling that a "wait and see" approach was best. Schools had been open 6 weeks or so and I had a feeling things were going to start going downhill again. As late as a week before the break was to begin, when it was apparent that most countries were closed to us (even Germany), I was still contemplating driving to Austria to get our fall break-fix of mountains and sun. Then we booked a vacation house on the Dutch island, Texel, thinking we'd just get away for a few days for a change of scenery. Then the weather forecast was cold and rainy on Texel and the idea of packing the car and spending a week inside a holiday home did not appeal. If you are thinking something must be wrong with me that I didn't want to travel, rest assured, I was really ok! I thought of all the "fall" things we wanted to do, all the cozy things we could do at home, and the friends we could see who were also staying put, and I was actually looking forward to the week at home! I had already taken the week off work and it was so nice to have all of my evenings free to hang out with Pete and catch up on Netflix. 

 

The first few days of the break were dry so we lit up the fire pit and roasted marshmallows. 

We made our annual pilgrimage to Olmenhurst for apple picking. Two ISA families joined and we ran into many others. For good reason, they had taken away the large signs that you could put your face in. I had pictures of Pete with the kids doing that every year since Jude was a toddler, so I was sad to break that tradition. Thankfully, our friends took some nice family shots for us instead. 

We stopped in the Haarlemmermeerse Bos on our way home and Jude and I enjoyed adventuring around. 

On Tuesday, we had a fun day out at the Zuiderzee Museum and then had some downtime at home on a rainy Wednesday. Thursday, we found another adventure, this time with the Nazlawys in the Waterleidingduinen, a really lovely nature reserve in the dunes near Zandvort beach. There were wild deer, mushrooms, dunes to climb, and a bunch of kids who walked a really long way with minimal complaints! A cafe at the entrance to the park was doing take away food and drinks, which we indulged in at the end. 

It was a really nice week in the Netherlands (with the best still to come). Grateful for this mental break!