You board the "Verbetering" at Houthavens, Amsterdam's old timber-import docks on the IJ waterfront, a working harbour of houseboats and historic ships just west of Centraal Station. It isn't a name most visitors know, which is rather the point. At the end of the day, this is also where you step back ashore.

Minutes after leaving the dock, we sail the open IJ past the NDSM wharf once one of the largest shipyards in the world, now Amsterdam's best-known cultural hotspot. From the water you see the harbour the way it was meant to be seen, while the skipper tells the story of the working port our 1916 cargo ship was built for.

Through the locks and onto the river Zaan, the oldest industrial region in Western Europe. Historic factories stand shoulder to shoulder with modern food industry along the banks, including the old Verkade biscuit and chocolate factory, as the windmills of the Zaanse Schans come into view ahead.

Within your two hours at the Zaanse Schans, your included ticket opens the Zaans Museum, where the history and art of the Zaan region is told room by room, and the Verkade Experience, where you step inside a genuine 'Willy Wonka' biscuit and chocolate factory from the early twentieth century, machines and all.

We moor at the Zaanse Schans and you step ashore for two full hours among the windmills, with the complete Zaanse Schans ticket already included in your booking. Visit two working windmills of your choice and meet the millers, explore the World of Windmills museum, the Zaans Museum with the Verkade Experience (an authentic early-1900s biscuit and chocolate factory), the Zaan Time Museum and the 18th-century Weavers' House, with a digital audio tour in English and Dutch. A clog-making workshop is included as well, it comes with the ship, not the ticket. Nothing to book or queue for separately.

Also on your included ticket: the World of Windmills museum, a multimedia journey through the industrial mill history that made the Zaan region the world's first industrial zone, a good first stop before you climb into a working mill yourself.

On the way home we cross the open North Holland polder to the old market town of Purmerend, farmland, church towers and waterways that look much as they did when this ship carried freight here a century ago.

The final leg follows the centuries-old tow canal between Purmerend and Amsterdam, the same waterway horses once towed barges along, before we, pass through the lock behind Amsterdam Central Station and moor back at Houthavens.

On the final stretch home, we pass through the lock right behind Amsterdam Centraal, one of the city's most recognisable landmarks, before mooring back at the Houthavens.