Welcome back! Today we were up bright and early for a 7 am breakfast and left the hostel at 8 am. We travelled one and a half hours to the Zuiderzeemuseum via private bus and we all got a good nap in on the way.

The outdoor section of the Zuiderzeemuseum museum is actually a boat ride away from the entrance, so we enjoyed a short ride on the Compagnieshaven bay. Before we entered the actual museum, a few of us took a quick detour back out onto the water. There was the opportunity to take some rowboats out into an enclosed area of the bay, and of course I had to join in.

I think there was an educational scavenger hunt we were supposed to be completing out on the water, but I can confidently say we completed zero parts of it. Instead I learned that you should never trust anyone out on the open water as our engaged in a bare knuckle fight for survival against our peers. (They stole our boat.)

Regardless, I had a lot of fun out on the water, but eventually we docked and entered the actual museum.

The Zuiderzeemuseum, other than having a long name, is an open air museum that exists to show what a traditional Dutch village looks like. It’s a recreation of the village of Zuiderzee before modern times. You’re able to walk around the whole village and enter most of the buildings, and there’s informational panels around explaining what each building was for. It was really fun to see what the Netherlands was like before the widespread use of electricity, and there was such attention to detail in the village it really felt like we were traveling back in time.

Some of the buildings are even operational. At the fishing hut you can buy smoked fish, at the bakery you can buy pastries, and the central market has been turned into a gift shop. We got lunch at the cafe located just outside the village.

After the museum, we took the hour and a half ride back to the hostel and arrived around 4:30. We took an hour break before heading out for dinner. A group of us decided to head to Markthal, which is a combined market and residential building. The luxury apartments create an arch over a marker down below filled with every cuisine imaginable, various shops, and a parking garage below ground.

After dinner we headed back for the hostel. Tomorrow we don’t have any activities planned until one pm, so I’ll be taking a much needed sleep in! See you tomorrow after our visit to a flood museum.