Edam, Marken and Volendam

We ventured farther from Amsterdam to visit a few historic villages. Everyone's probably eaten Edam cheese at some point. Well, it's made here in Holland in the village of Edam. They've been making cheese here for centuries and is still run by the Henri Willig family.  Very little has changed throughout the years. 

Marken is a small fishing village that exists solely because of the dikes built to protect this landmass from the water surrounding it.  We visited a wooden shoe factory and got a demonstration of how they're made--today by machine. What took three hours by hand now takes about five minutes by machine, one to cut out the exterior shape and the second to drill out the interior.