The Zuiderzee Museum in Enkhuizen revives the stories of people who once lived on the shores of the Zuiderzee. See, hear, taste and smell everyday life around the Zuiderzee as it was before the Afsluitdijk (IJsselmeer Barrier Dam) changed the sea into the IJsselmeer in 1932.
Your visit starts with a boat trip on the museum ferry from the station or parking to the open air section of the Zuiderzee Museum. At the museum you will be taken on a tour from the town of Enkhuizen, across the Afsluitdijk dike and the Wadden Sea Islands to Frisian towns like Hindeloopen and Makkum, and back again to the province of Noord-Holland, where you'll visit the villages of Marken and Volendam.
The open-air section covers 15 acres and accommodates authentic buildings from the former Zuiderzee region, such as a church, a fish-curing shed, a mill, a cheese warehouse, shops and dwelling houses from the surrounding fishing villages. You can help craftspeople in the Marker harbour making nets, produce a rope at the rope-maker’s workplace, give the housemaid a hand, or enter into a conversation with the ‘inhabitants’ from the former island of Urk. Take in the aroma of freshly smoked fish and photograph your (grand)children in traditional Volendam costumes.