A town that smells of smoke

Monnickendam received its city rights in 1355 and its Grote Kerk dates from around 1400. For centuries the town lived from the water, and from what it did with fish. Smoked eel from Monnickendam was famous, and the smokehouses along the harbour gave the town its smell. NH Nieuws reported that of the 32 smokehouses the town once had, one was still standing. Every year the Monnickendammer Visdagen bring the tradition back for a weekend, with an old-fashioned fish auction where the highest bidder smokes the catch inside a historic smokehouse.

Freshly smoked eel at a Waterland smokehouse

An island until 1957

A few kilometres east lies Marken. It was an island in the Zuiderzee for centuries and was only connected to the mainland in 1957, by a dike to Monnickendam. Because the sea flooded it so often, its houses were built on mounds and on piles, grouped into werven, small neighbourhoods on raised ground. The floods ended, the building style stayed. Marken is now a protected village, with the green and black wooden houses that end up on every postcard of Holland.

A dike village reflected in the water

What we do there

We know Waterland the way you know your own street, which is why the programme we built there avoids the tourist stops. Guests cycle with a local storyteller along dikes and through villages, and stop at people who work there: a dairy farmer and his herd, a smokehouse where the eel comes out of the oven, a tea garden behind a wooden house. Every stop includes a tasting, and every route is different, because it depends on who is home that day and what the season brings.

A dairy farmer with his herd

For international guests it is often the most memorable part of a trip to Amsterdam: an afternoon that feels like the Netherlands in a painting, with people who actually live there.

A tea garden in Waterland

Practical

• Getting there: by bike from Amsterdam-Noord, by coach, or by RIB boat from Amsterdam with a transfer to the first stop.

• Bikes: city bikes or e-bikes; e-choppers and e-boats are possible for groups who want something different.

• Group size: from about 16 to 300, in smaller groups with their own guide each.

• Best season: spring to autumn; in winter the programme moves indoors to farms and smokehouses.

Sources

• RODI Waterland, interview with the Monnickendam city guides (city rights 1355, Grote Kerk).

• NH Nieuws, on fish smoking in Monnickendam and the remaining smokehouse.

• RODI Waterland, programme of the Monnickendammer Visdagen 2026.

• NH Nieuws, In Vogelvlucht: Marken (island until 1957, werven, building on mounds and piles).

• Endless Minds programme description Waterland Experience.