Broek in Waterland

Broek in Waterland grew rich in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on shipping and whaling, and the retired captains and merchants who settled here built timber houses painted in a particular grey-green, with front rooms kept for show and never used, gardens laid out in miniature formal patterns, and streets swept to a standard that became a European joke - travellers including Napoleon, Diderot and Tsar Peter recorded their astonishment, and the story that visitors had to remove their shoes or that carriages were banned from the village is repeated in the eighteenth-century accounts. The houses survive, mostly private, around a lake with a church and a small square. It sits ten kilometres from Amsterdam and is on the main cycle route north to Volendam, so it is best on a bicycle, and there is not much else - which is the appeal.

What you actually see

• Grey-green painted timber houses - the captains' and merchants' village, largely intact.
• A famous cleanliness - recorded with astonishment by eighteenth-century travellers.
• Miniature formal gardens - the front plots laid out in patterns.
• A lakeside village - church and square around the water.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Honest expectations

The houses are private homes and the interest is entirely from the street. There is very little to do - an hour of walking. It is on a busy cycle route and traffic through is constant in summer.

Nearby

Monnickendam and Marken are north-east; Amsterdam is south.