De Rijp

De Rijp was a herring and whaling village on the Beemster lake, and its wealth in the seventeenth century went into timber houses with carved gables which survive in unusual numbers - the whole centre is protected. Jan Adriaanszoon Leeghwater was born here in 1575, a mill engineer and carpenter who worked out how to drain large lakes by ringing them with a dyke and a chain of windmills lifting water in stages, and applied it to the Beemster from 1607 - which took the lake this village fished and turned it into farmland, the Beemster polder now being on the UNESCO list as a model of Dutch land reclamation. The village lost its water and became inland. The Grote Kerk has a set of seventeenth-century stained glass windows, the town hall of 1630 is timber, and the museum covers Leeghwater and the whaling.

What you actually see

• Carved timber houses - a protected centre from the whaling and herring wealth.
• Leeghwater's village - birthplace of the engineer who drained the surrounding lakes.
• A timber town hall of 1630 - standing on the square.
• Seventeenth-century glass - the window set in the Grote Kerk.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Honest expectations

Church and museum keep short seasonal hours. The village is very small. The Beemster around it is flat farmland, of interest for the land pattern rather than scenery.

Nearby

The Beemster polder surrounds it; Alkmaar is north-west.