For my last full day in Holland, I started the morning with a visit to Zaanse Schans (a name to which I still don’t know how to pronounce). There are a couple of ways to get to the village – one is to take the heritage bus, which takes about 40 minutes, and the other is to take a train to the nearest station and walk 15 minutes. I ended up taking the train as it was both quicker and cheaper.

While the regular IAmsterdam card doesn’t cover transportation outside of the city, it does cover admission to the attractions inside Zaanse Schans. I made sure to visit all four windmills, two museums and two historical houses to get my 42 euros worth of admissions. =P

I definitely recommend spending at least a half day in Zaanse Schans. Even if you don’t go inside all the museums and windmills, it’s worth it to just walk around the village and take in the picturesque view. If you have extra time, then I recommend checking out the main museum and at least one of the windmills to see how everything works from the inside.

Since I visited all the attractions I ended up spending way longer in Zaanse Schans than I had intended and almost didn’t have time to eat lunch. I wasn’t too hungry anyway since I ate my share of cheese samples inside one of the shops, but I did stop by the convenience store on the way back to the train station to grab a minced meat pie. Then it was straight to the Van Gogh Museum, where I had a timed ticket for 3:30pm.

The Van Gogh Museum was the last museum I had on my list. Since I’m a huge fan of Impressionist works, I had a really enjoyable time inside. It was great seeing the special exhibits as well, including one which looked into Van Gogh’s dreams. I pretty much stayed there until closing, so there was ample time to explore the entire collection.

As I had missed lunch, I made an effort to eat double the amount for dinner. The Pantry was one of the few restaurants I looked up prior to going to Amsterdam, and I’m glad I had time to fit it in cause the food was just exceptional. I had their three kinds of fish for my appetizer, which included salted herring, smoked eel and Dutch shrimps. Then for the main course I had their massive Dutch ham, which came with the bone still in the meat.

The restaurant isn’t very big, but it had a really cozy atmosphere. I’m glad I finished the first part of my trip there. (I also ate an apple strudel for dessert that night and I think it nicely compensated for my lack of lunch.) Overall I had a great time in Amsterdam. While I didn’t get to see any tulips on this visit, the perfect weather I had certainly made up for it. Onto the next stop – Belgium!