jason8612

I will be in Amsterdam for a few days and was thinking of taking a half day trip outside the city to the countryside to grab some photos of some windmills, have a good lunch, maybe some cheese tasting...
What options would I have if I wanted to do it by public transport?

UKtravelbear

I visited Zasnse Schanse on a trip to Amsterdam earlier this year.

It has several still operating windmills and you can go in some of them (i think they do a rota of which are open on a particulat day)

Train took ~ 20 minutes from Centraal - then a 10 minute or so walk to the area where they are located.

Bikeguy

I'd get a bicycle and ride around myself. Did that a few years ago. Assume. Took a ferry back. One of the best travel days ever.

utgypsy

I too would highly recommend Zaanse Schans. We went there on a Sunday afternoon in June of last year and there was a fun festival going on that day. Great community feel, picturesque, easy access from Amsterdam, and right as you exit the subway station, there is the intoxicating smell of chocolate from a nearby chocolate factory! Check the website for more details and photos:

https://www.dezaanseschans.nl/en/

pmichelazzo

If your days include a Friday until the end of September, you can go to Alkmaar to see the traditional cheese market and, on the trip, the windmills. Alkmaar is 30 minutes away by train. A small and charming city with beautiful squares and gardens. This market is one of the oldest in Netherlands and always crowded (but fun). A lot of cheese shops around, bars and, for sure, cheese.

https://www.kaasmarkt.nl/en/

If you don't like so much the cheese (that you can buy everwhere in different shops in Amsterdam) and prefer to get inside a windmill, the best choice is a tour (or by yourself) to Zaanse Schans. It's a small village close of Amsterdam when you can see the windmills and taste a small idea about the Dutch culture.

https://www.dezaanseschans.nl/

Another option will be the World Heritage site of Kinderdijk on the south, but it's take more of a half day.

By the way, we still have 8 windmills in Amsterdam.

Enjoy!

Ditto

And you can even get an tour inside one of them - http://www.brouwerijhetij.nl/tours-i...ewery/?lang=en

RTW1

That last one was the one I was thinking about too :-). And some great beers.

pmichelazzo

Great beers... in Belgium

stut

I went to Zaanse Schans the other week and it surprised me - I actually quite liked it.

The downside - it is a reconstruction. Most of the windmills have been resited and restored, but also the Zaans 'village' and gardens along the river, too. And it's very definitively on the tour group circuit.

If you're interested in the history of the area, want the cheesy costume photos, etc, etc, then you can do that. If you just want to see some windmills and have a nice day out by the river, you can do that too. Actually, that area of Zaandijk, just north of Julianabrug is rather pretty, with a couple of nice cafés on the west side of the bridge, as well as a brewery with a pub attached up by the ferry landing (the foot ferry and bridge between them give nearly as good a view of the windmills as the river trips, to be honest).

The area in general is quite industrial, which, well, if you think about why there were windmills there in the first place, probably makes sense.

It's an easy train ride up there (not metro, NS train) to Zaandijk Zaanse Schans.

It's a little cheesy, and bits of it do get overrun by the umbrella-wielding hordes at time, but there's some genuinely nice spots around and it makes for a pleasant half day, particularly if you want a flavour of rural old Holland and don't have the chance to make it out somewhere.

(Although personally, I'd hire a bikr or get one of the EBS bus €10 tickets, and head up to Broek in Waterland, Monnickendam, Marken and/or Edam - love it round there!)