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A canal with a wooden bridge, brick buildings, and people walking. 1
People sitting at tables outdoors, a red umbrella, and buildings in the background. 2
A canal-side building with a restaurant named 'De Koker' and a reflection in the water. 3
A wooden boardwalk with people walking and standing by a brick building with arched windows. 4
A windmill, a body of water, and two people standing near the water's edge. 5
By Step Quests
Free cancellation available
Price is RM 46 per adult
See tickets

Features

  • Free cancellation available
  • 2h
  • Mobile voucher
  • Instant confirmation
  • Multiple languages

Overview

  • This isn't a bus tour past the lock gates. It's a self-guided walk through the village where Dutch water management began — the Kolksluis, still called the oldest working lock in Europe, the church where Frans Hals signed the register, and the 1641 Gemeenlandshuis where Rijnland's dike overseers worked. The StepQuests app guides you by GPS in English or Dutch, with real stories and quizzes at every stop, go at your own pace, ending with a drink at Cafe Spaarndam overlooking the lock.

Activity location

  • Kolksluis Spaarndam
    • IJdijk
    • 2000 AA, Spaarndam-West, The Netherlands

Meeting/Redemption Point

  • Kolksluis
    • Spaarndam Gem. Haarlem, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

Check availability

Spaarndam Self-Guided History Walking Tour with Local Stories in Multilingual

  • Activity duration is 2 hours2h
    2h
  • Opening hours: Wed 0:00-23:30
  • English
Price details
RM 46.23 x 1 AdultRM 46.23
Total
Price is RM 46.23

What's included, what's not

  • Inclusions
    Self-guided smartphone app with GPS-guided walking route
  • Exclusions
    Cost of smoked eel, meals, or drinks purchased at Holland Paling, restaurants and cafes along the route
  • Exclusions
    Transportation to/from the starting point

Know before you book

    • Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
    • Service animals allowed
    • Public transportation options are available nearby
    • Suitable for all physical fitness levels

Activity itinerary

Kolksluis Spaarndam

  • 5m
Start at the Kolksluis, still called the oldest working lock in Europe. Learn its story on the StepQuests app before setting off along the dike.

Standbeeld Hans Brinker IJdijk Spaarndam

  • 5m
See the bronze statue of the boy with his finger in the dike — a tourist-board invention from 1950, not an old Dutch legend. The app tells the real story behind it.

Gemeenlandshuis Spaarndam (1641)

  • 10m
Pass the 1641 dike overseer's house, a national monument on the polder line. The app tells you why Rijnland built it here and what the Gemeenlandshuis still does today.

Rijksmonument Oude Kerk

  • 10m
Pause at the Oude Kerk on Kerkplein, a brick hall church built in 1627 and listed as a national monument. The churchyard is freely accessible; the nave itself is only open during services, concerts or weddings.

Spaarndam

  • 10m
Walk to the Grote Sluis, the working lock and lifting bridge connecting the Spaarne to Zijkanaal C and the North Sea Canal. Watch pleasure boats and barges pass through the chamber, rebuilt between 2009 and 2011.

Spaarndam-West

  • 10m
Stop at Holland Paling, a family smokehouse on the Spaarndammerdijk that has smoked eel the traditional way since 1832. Buy smoked eel or other smoked fish at the retail counter to taste a local specialty.

Spaarndam

  • 5m
Look across to De Slokop, an 1877 octagonal polder windmill on Lagedijk. It is a private home viewed from the public dike, one of the mills that once drained the fields behind the east bank of the Spaarne.

Spaarndam-West

  • 10m
Pass the Boezemgemaal, a T-shaped brick pumping station built in 1844 that still lifts surplus water from the Spaarne onto the North Sea Canal. View it from the public path; the exterior is what you see, as it is working infrastructure.

Spaarndam

  • 5m
Pass Restaurant De Kolk on Oostkolk, overlooking the same lock basin as the Kolksluis. A former grocery and ship-store since 1919, now a waterside restaurant with a terrace, open Wednesday to Sunday for optional lunch or dinner.

Kolksluis Spaarndam

  • 10m
Finish at Cafe Spaarndam, Westkolk 10, on the other door of the same lock where skippers once drank between lockages. Eel is still on the menu; sit on the terrace overlooking the Kolksluis to end the walk.

Location

Activity location

  • LOB_ACTIVITIESLOB_ACTIVITIES
    Kolksluis Spaarndam
    • IJdijk
    • 2000 AA, Spaarndam-West, The Netherlands

Meeting/Redemption Point

  • PEOPLEPEOPLE
    Kolksluis
    • Spaarndam Gem. Haarlem, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

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