The small harbour on the Gouwzee inlet is the most photogenic corner of Monnickendam, lined with traditional Dutch wooden fishing boats — botters and lemsteraaken — that are still maintained and sailed by enthusiasts. In the summer months the harbour is particularly lively, with boats coming and going and the old smoke house beside the water still operating as a working smoked-eel business.
The buildings along the harbour front are a good illustration of 17th-century Waterland architecture: brick warehouses and merchants' houses with stepped gables, little altered since the town's commercial peak. The smoked eel from the harbour smokehouse is the local speciality and worth trying if you eat fish.