enkhuizen Museum
 

About how much time should I plan for the museum. I am trying to decide whether to go to the ferry to Texel that evening or the next morning. The evening might work better because of the hours of car rental offices.

Half a day, I think. So, if you go in the morning, you'd be able to drive to Texel, after lunch, say about 2 PM?

From Den Helder, the last ferry departing is at 21.30, so you have more than enough time.

Enkhuizen - Den Helder is about 60km: there's the scenic route that also allows you to visit Medemblik N240 - then the N99 and N250 to Den Helder. That route takes you across the former island of Wieringen, and you could even turn right and see a little bit of Afsluitdijk. The drive along the Wadden Coast, past De Kooy towards Den Helder is quite nice.

Where are you picking up your car?

There's two museums - one indoor and one outdoor - indoor one won't take too long but the delightful open-air one could - all depends on you

YOu two are unbelievable, I owe you a beer or glass of wine. I have been playing with several options because of Kings Day, flight prices, days museums are closed and days that I can drop a car because almose all except Amsterdam are closed on Sundays . with this said I am going to post a revised itinerary.

A long afternoon covered both museums for us. However, you are dependent on the train schedule because there are not that many trains arriving to or departing from Enkhuizen.

From my trip report:

We took an excursion to Enkhuizen (the only time our tickets were checked on the train—in both directions) to visit the town and its open air museum. We spent so much time there that we had little time to see the Zuiderzee museum included in the ticket price. There is little food available in the outdoor museum, but we had purchased picnic items in town and ate by the harbor before going to the museum. There was a stand selling freshly smoked herring—but the herring is not fresh. It was explained to us that Dutch law requires all herring to be flash frozen to kill any potential parasites they might harbor. Therefore the freshly smoked herring might be last year’s harvest or this year’s (it was herring season), the seller did not know. Enkhuizen is definitely worth a visit for this museum and to see all the old coastal haulers which are now used as charter boats.

there's an hourly train to Enkhuizen from Amsterdam.

btw, herring, dutch sushi, is salt cured, not smoked. there is smoked herring, but that's a different product for the winter months. If you see "nieuwe haring" and it's after june, you'll have this year's catch. Sellers can't offer "New Herring" outside of that season. (herring season is a big thing in The Netherlands, we take our sushi very seriously)

in the enkhuizen museum, there's a cafe in the bakery (Stadsgracht). If you leave the museum, the Strandpaviljoen (5 minutes walking along Kooiweg) is a lovely spot for lunch, alternatively, Mastenbar, at Compagnieshaven is also nice. Apart from numerous places in town, of course, but these are convenient and easy to reach on foot from the museum itself.

there's an hourly train to Enkhuizen from Amsterdam.>

There is also a boat service from train station to the museum but it's not a very long walk either through a nice part of town.

days that I can drop a car because almose all except Amsterdam are closed on Sundays>

Schiphol Airport is easy to drive into and they should be open then and hop the train to anywhere from airport train station.

exactly.