Amsterdam guide
Beyond Amsterdam
Haarlem — the one to do
Fifteen minutes by train and €5.50 — the cheapest and easiest escape from Amsterdam, and the one locals actually take. It is what Amsterdam looks like without the crowds: the same gabled streets and canals at two-thirds the scale.
See the Teylers Museum, the oldest museum in the Netherlands, a perfectly preserved cabinet of fossils, instruments and drawings. The Frans Hals Museum holds the great group portraits. The Grote Kerk has the Müller organ that Mozart played at ten. And the hofjes — around twenty enclosed almshouse courtyards, most of them seventeenth- and eighteenth-century, tucked behind ordinary doors — are the loveliest thing in the city and nearly free.
Markets on the Grote Markt, Mondays and Saturdays 09:00–16:00.
Zaanse Schans — and what it actually costs
Fifteen minutes by train to Zaandijk Zaanse Schans, €4.20. Working windmills on a green riverbank, with clog and cheese workshops.
The village is free. You may have read about a €17.50 entrance fee — it was formally shelved in January 2026, and there will be no general entrance fee before 2029. What costs money is the Ticket Zaanse Schans at €29.50, which gets you inside two working mills and the museums. Many visitors don't need it: you can walk among the windmills, photograph everything and pay only the train fare.
Not every mill and museum opens every day — check the calendar on their site before you go.
Keukenhof — spring only
18 March to 9 May 2027, daily 08:00–19:00, last entry 18:15. Seven million bulbs in a park that exists for eight weeks a year. Expect roughly €21.50 online.
Get there on the Keukenhof Express bus 852 from Europaplein, near RAI station on metro M52 — direct, no stops, up to eight an hour. A combined bus-and-entry ticket is expected to be about €38.50 for the 2027 season, based on regional tourism-board information published before Keukenhof released its own prices. Parking must be booked online in 2027 if you drive.
Volendam and Marken
Bus 316 from the EBS Waterland terminal at Centraal — it's on the raised platform behind platforms 14–15, on the IJ side, which people miss. 30–35 minutes, about €6.50. Then the Marken Express ferry, 30 minutes, hourly from 11:00 to 18:00, late March to October, with extra half-hourly crossings only on peak summer afternoons. Check the current ferry fare before travelling.
Honest note: these are the most commercialised of the Waterland villages — costumed photo studios and souvenir strips. Edam, on the same bus line, is quieter and often the better stop.
Delft and The Hague
€17.30 to Delft, €15.30 to Den Haag, and they sit on the same line so most people do both. The Mauritshuis in The Hague is €21 and normally holds Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring.
Check before you travel: the Girl was on loan to Osaka through much of 2026 and was due back in early October. Confirm that it is on display at mauritshuis.nl first.
In Delft, the Vermeer Centrum is €15 and open daily 10:00–17:00.
Utrecht
€10 and about half an hour. The Dom Tower is the tallest church tower in the Netherlands, and the canals are unique in Europe: split-level, with wharf cellars at water height that are now cafés and terraces.
Texel
Reachable, but a long day: train to Den Helder (€19.10) then the ferry (€3 return on foot — that is the round trip, not each way). Better as an overnight. For a beach day, Zandvoort aan Zee is the direct train, and combines with Haarlem on the same line.
Fares are official NS second-class singles, checked September 2026.
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