May 18, 2026

Zaanse Schans: The Complete Day Trip Guide from Amsterdam

Plan the perfect Zaanse Schans day trip from Amsterdam — working windmills, traditional crafts, and a complete guide to visiting without the crowds.

Love Netherlands

Dear Netherlands,

The first thing you notice when you arrive in the Netherlands is how much of it is water. The second thing is how comfortable the Dutch are with it. They cycle past canals, they eat herring leaning over the side of a railing, they build cities below sea level and make them look effortless. It’s the quiet confidence of a country that knows exactly what it is.

Was this forwarded to you? Subscribe free and never miss an edition →

If the daily newsletter brings you closer to the Netherlands, our Sunday Premium Edition takes you deeper into it. Every Sunday you’ll receive travel deep dives, curated itineraries, regional stories, and hidden gems you won’t find anywhere else.

Upgrade for less than the price of a pint and see the Netherlands in a completely new way.

Photo: Shutterstock

In today’s email:

• Zaanse Schans: The Complete Day Trip Guide from Amsterdam
• At The Café — Café ‘t Smalle — Jordaan’s Tiny Canal Hideaway
• Around The Web — Delft — A Day in the Town That Made Vermeer, Groningen Travel Guide, Maastricht Travel Guide + more
• From Love Netherlands — The Wadden Islands — Choosing Your Island
• Dutch Food You Will Love — Dutch Cheese Beyond the Tourist Shops

Zaanse Schans: The Complete Day Trip Guide from Amsterdam

👉 Read the full story

A Zaanse Schans day trip from Amsterdam is one of the most rewarding half-days you can spend in the Netherlands. Just 15 kilometres north of the city, this open-air heritage village sits along the banks of the River Zaan, where a row of working windmills turns against the flat Dutch sky, painted houses lean over the water, and craft workshops have been producing clog shoes, Gouda cheese, and traditional Dutch paint for centuries. It is, in short, exactly what the Netherlands looks like in your imagination — and remarkably, it is genuine. Love the Netherlands? Join our free newsletter for hidden Dutch gems → inlovewithnetherlands.substack.com Unlike many heritage attractions built around tourism, Zaanse Schans began as a genuine working community. The windmills here are not decorative — they produce real sawdust, oil, and paint. The cheese dairy makes cheese you can actually buy. The…

👉 Read the full story

Have you been there? Do you have a memory of this corner of the Netherlands? Hit reply and tell us — we’d love to hear your story.

“Want deep dives into the Netherlands every Sunday? Our Premium readers already have their next edition waiting.”

At The Café

Café ‘t Smalle — Jordaan’s Tiny Canal Hideaway

Café ‘t Smalle is exactly what its name says: small. It’s tucked on the Egelantiersgracht in the Jordaan, with a handful of tables inside and a tiny floating terrace on the canal that’s always full the moment the sun comes out. The building has been a café since 1786. You don’t go for the menu — you go because it’s one of the most beautiful places in Amsterdam to sit with a glass of wine and watch the boats drift past. Rain or shine, locals have been doing exactly this for two hundred and forty years.

👉 Visit the café

Around The Web

From Love Netherlands

The Wadden Islands — Choosing Your Island

The ferry from Den Helder leaves at half past eight on a grey April morning, and within minutes the Dutch coastline becomes abstract—a thin line of dunes and church spires receding into mist. The North Sea is the colour of wet concrete. Gulls wheel overhead. Ahead, invisible until the last moment, one of five inhabited Dutch Wadden Islands materialises out of the haze: a low, green shape, ringed with sand. Most travellers who make it this far…

👉 Read the full story

Photo: De Waddenzee by Uberprutser via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Dutch Food You Will Love

Dutch Cheese Beyond the Tourist Shops

The cheese in every Amsterdam tourist-shop window is usually young and mild. Nice enough for a sandwich. But the real Dutch cheese is aged — four, six, sometimes twelve months — and it’s where the country’s centuries of dairy craft actually show up. Aged Gouda picks up tiny white crystals and a deep nutty flavour that sits somewhere between an English cheddar and an Italian Parmigiano. You have to find a farmhouse dairy, or a Friday market stall in Alkmaar, or the kind of small family shop that closes at lunchtime for 90 minutes and nobody complains.

👉 Read the full story

Know Someone Who Loves the Netherlands?

If you’re enjoying this letter, the best thing you could do is forward it to one friend who’d love the Netherlands too. This newsletter grows by word of mouth alone — every single subscriber came from someone sending it to someone else. Thank you for being one of the first.

Our daily newsletter is free and always will be. But for less than the price of a pint, you can upgrade to our Sunday Premium Edition, which gives you access to our travel deep dives, curated itineraries, and regional stories. Consider buying us a stroopwafel — it’s the Dutch way to say thank you.

Also From Our Family

Love Ireland too? Over 64,000 readers wake up each morning to the Love Ireland newsletter — loveireland.substack.com

Or Scotland? Join 43,000 Scotland lovers — lovescotland.substack.com

You’re reading Love Netherlands — a free letter about canal towns, hidden villages, and Dutch stories, delivered Monday to Friday.

inlovewithnetherlands.com ·
Unsubscribe

© 2026 Love Netherlands · Part of the Love To Visit LLC family