Windmills, Wooden Shoes, and Waterways

31

February 8th, 2018 – Today I got out of bed and decided to do something different. I’ve explored much of Amsterdam’s canal district on foot and by tram, but today I decided to venture farther afield. I grabbed my laptop and started looking for day-trips from town. I found a few, mostly tours, but I’m antisocial and a tour meant socializing with strangers in a captive environment. No thanks, I was here to get away from having any forced socialization. After teaching a workshop for five days solid I was thoroughly enjoying the complete absence of any need for conversation. It has been fabulous. Being an introverted personality has its advantages, one of them is being completely happy at being on my own.

So I scrolled down through things to do around Amsterdam and saw all the lovely things to do in the warmer months. Today was sunny and cold, but tomorrow the forecast was for a possibility of snow and rain. That was my main reason for doing this today, tomorrow didn’t seem like pleasant option for wandering the countryside.

As I scrolled I saw a scene of fabulous old windmills on the banks of a river. Ahhh…lovely…. the proverbial image of Holland. I assumed this would be too far to travel to and back in a day.

I was wrong.

The area is called Zaanse Schans, a neighbourhood of Zaandam, near Zaandijk. Acording to the website, Zaanse Schanse is an open air museum, a reconstructed village with a collection of well-preserved historic windmills and houses. From 1961 to 1974 old buildings from all over the Zaanstreek were rescued and relocated to the area.

And, even better, the Zaans Museum is located in the Zaanse Schans, and they accept the Museumkaart.

Perfect!

Destination identified!

Now, how to get there. I found a couple of bus tours, but they were about €50-€60 and involved involved that group social interaction that I was happier to avoid. I was proud of myself to have done one group tour on the first day of my visit, but now I was happily in my world of solitude.

I googled “How to get to Zaanse Schans from Amsterdam” and Lo! Someone had written up a perfect how to guide, seemingly just for me! This writer seriously idiot-proofed getting there!

I walked Kirk the the trade show again, and took a tram to Amsterdam Centraal where I muddled my way through the ticket purchase and stared at the Departures screen for a bit before determining where I had to go to catch my train. Turns out I’d just missed it, but, being an extremely efficient system, the next would be along in about 10 minutes. Not long to wait at all.

Once the train pulled in I boarded and settled in with the few other people on board. Zaanse Schans is about 30 km out of Amsterdam but the trip only takes about 15 minutes because the train clips along at about 125km’hr between stops. It flew along through residential areas and then out into industrial spaces. On first glance that smokestack looked horrible to me. It seems to imply pollution. But the Netherlands incinerate much of their waste and capture the energy to turn it into electricity. The country recycles no less than 64% of its waste – and most of the remainder is incinerated to generate electricity; only a very small percentage ever ends up in landfill. The Dutch avoid creating waste as much as possible, recover the valuable raw materials from it, generate energy by incinerating residual waste, and only then dump what is left over – but do so in an environmentally friendly way; more than 90% of Dutch people separate their household waste. (Source: Waste Management World)

I paid enough attention that I recognized where I was supposed to get off the train, exited the train station via the underground passage to the street above, and began the ten minute walk to the river. Along the way I passed a large industrial plant with another smokestack spewing out steam high above. The area was clean and the smoke was white, I assumed it was an electrical plant or some other heavy industry operation.

I turned the corner after walking the length of the fence around the plant and a short few blocks down I came to the edge of the river and was greeted by the first of many windmills.

As I crossed the River Zaan I could see Zaanse Schans laid out along its far bank. The Zaanse Schans derived its from the river Zaan and its original function as sconce (schans in Dutch) against the Spanish troops during the Eighty Years’ War of Dutch independence. It was barely after 10am and the area was quiet. The sun was casting that early golden glow on everything but it wasn’t warm yet; the road was icy and the wind had a cold bite to it.

When I crossed over the river and entered Zaanse Schans I realized that the hour meant I had beat the  rest of the tourists. Most museums in Amsterdam don’t open until either 10am or 11am at the earliest, there are a couple of exceptions, bu not many. I don’t know why I thought here would be any different, but it didn’t matter because the area was so lovely and the walk so peaceful. If it felt like things were just waking up it was because they were. The shops weren’t open, the mill museums weren’t yet open either, though the working sawmill had staff busily cutting wood.

A few other early tourists strolled the dijk before and behind me. A cyclist rode by. A heron poked at the thin ice covering the water between the narrow fields. A magpie chattered and flew by. Some morning mist over the fields began to burn off and despite the wind, the water mills in the fields were still.

Off in the distance, far behind the windmills and farther along the river in both directions, could be seen the modern industry. The stacks of the factories were a stark contrast to the peaceful simplicity of these peaty fields in front of me. They alo explained the slight colour cast to the haze that was dissipating with the warming sun.

A well loved cat wandered out of the gloom of one of the mills and settled in the sunshine. A few tourists tried to engage it but it stared past them at the birds flitting in the fields beyond. As I took a photo the cat stood and strolled to wards me, lazily pausing as it brushed between my legs as if to say “Go ahead, you may pet me…once…and now I must move on…”, which it did.

The windmills thrilled me, this was Holland, the mills an integral part of how Holland came to be. Windmills had many purposes – milling grain, sawing wood, pumping oil, grinding spices, but the most important probably was pumping water out of the lowlands and back into the rivers beyond the dikes so that the land could be farmed. In the 1300’s the Dutch figured out how to manage water in remarkable ways. The windmills removed water and provided land, land below sea level that they protected with dikes and canals and amazing drainage systems still operational today.

While I wandered I received a text from Kirk “Would you like to join us for dinner?” Hmmm, be social? “If dinner isn’t early, perhaps, I’ll let you know.” In over a year I’ve managed to not meet his employer and only have met two people he works with. The intention on this trip was for me to literally be invisible. They were initially concerned that my presence would be a distraction to his work, he had assured them that I’m not that kind of person and they’d be unlikely to ever see me or that I’d even contact him during the day. As it turned out, his colleagues seemed a bit surprised at my total absence and often asked him where I was or what I was doing, to which his general response was along the lines of “I have no idea, she’s kinda like that though.”

I had thought there might be one opportunity for a dinner out, and I had brought something nice to wear out, but I wasn’t going to commit until I was back in Amsterdam.

As I walked the length of the little village and back again I kept trying to put my finger on the scent in the air. Sort of burnt, sort of sweet. I couldn’t come up with it. On the way back towards the main road I started to encounter more and more people. It was after 11am now and more tourists had arrived. Flocks of them were congesting the pathway. There are very distinctly marked areas for cars, people, and bicycles here in the Netherlands. Step into the bicycle lanes and you may get flattened. You learn very quickly to differentiate where you are walking, survival skills kick in, at least they did for me. For the Japanese tourists here now, not so much. A cyclist veered through a group walking in the wrong lane and rang his bell and cursed something in Dutch.

A small horde of Japanese tourists were descending on the cheese farm and the chocolate makers, so I opted to walk down the road to Zaans Museum, about a five or ten minute walk along the main thoroughfare to the parking lot, where I saw several large tour buses, which I assume disgorged the horde up the road at the mills. I can’t imagine how busy this place must be during the summer months if this many tourists were out and about on a cold February morning.

Along the way I passed a parking lot where some workers were removing all of the limbs on a stand of trees, presumably making way for new development; they looked like skeletons against the sky.

When I entered the museum it felt nice to be out of the cold. I approached the desk and presented my Museumkaart and …… the fellow began speaking to me in Dutch, and again I received that now familiar surprised look followed by the exclamation along the lines of “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you were Dutch!”

“Yes, I’m getting that a lot.”

He handed me my ticket to present to the woman at the entrance. He also handed me a slip of paper with a bar code on it. When I looked  confused he told me it was for access to the bathroom. Oh, yes, I needed that after walking for so long, my three cappuccinos had definitely worked their way through…. but a barcode? “Yes” he said, “just scan it for access.”

Well of course it didn’t work. So I had to traipse back over to the desk looking sheepish and ask exactly how to make it work. He smiled and came with me, but it didn’t work for him either, so I felt a bit vindicated. The two of us walked back to the desk, under the gaze of a curious couple having a snack at the cafe. The fellow I was following waved the slip of paper at his colleague and said something. She reached back and opened a jar and pulled out another slip of paper and handed it to him, and we both walked back across the foyer to the turnstile where he placed the barcode on the scanner and….nothing. So he started to wave it back and forth and eventually he found the right magical distance and the machine pinged and the turnstile became turnable.

We rejoiced.

Well, ok, only I rejoiced, he just looked pleased to have both helped me and learned something new at the same time.

As I washed my hands I realized I had misplaced my barcoded slip of paper…oh no….was I able to get out?!? I had a minor panic before finding the slip and exiting the washroom. I stood in front of the turnstile for a moment looking for where to scan the paper before I realized I only needed it to get in. As I walked through the gate I couldn’t help wondering why this out of the way museum had such an elaborate system for getting into the washroom when I’d encountered nothing like this anywhere else I’d been. Then I looked through the wall of glass at the three tour buses and had that “ah ha” moment. The village charged no fee for visiting, although some of the mills had entry fees. I’d seen a pay washroom in the village, and the washrooms here were not within the paid area of the museum. Logic told me the access had been abused by tour operators.

I turned the corner and showed my ticket to the woman at the door, gathered my audio tour and pointed it at the English button to program it, popped the headphones on, and began to learn all about the manufacturing history of the Zaan region. This was a trip through the food history of the area too. Prosperity and industry tied to the river which is tied to the ocean and all the trade that it carries from distant shores. Within a series of display cases that lead the visitor up a rise and along a depiction of the Zaan river was a collection of the various good imported and what they were turned into. Chocolate, coffee, oils, grains, spices, nuts, biscuits. Some of the items were familiar to me, having been seen in the pantry of friends homes growing up. The area is referred to as “the Pantry of Holland”.

Farther in the museum was a collection of local costumes, furniture and household objects that reflected the rich cultural and industrial heritage, and artwork created by painters in the region. A highlight was a Monet depicting time spent in the area. Over an enclosed walkway was a small side museum containing a small cookie factory that demonstrated the early days of automation – the Verkade Pavilion is a factory from the early 20th century where authentic machines continue to run, just not produce cookies anymore. The exhibits at the Verkade Pavilion display products, advertising, photographs and films celebrating the 100-year history of the company. The Dutch definitely do know how to do cookies.

When I left the museum I walked around back to where I’d seen a wooden staircase to a lookout. It provided a great view across the waterways and polder landscape, and to the modern industrial landscape in the distance.

From my perch atop the lookout I realized that there was a path that led through the fields and back to the village; I had to walk that way to return through the town and back to the train station anyway, and it beat walking along a busy street. I descended the stairs and watched a man of Asian descent toss a pebble onto the frozen water, then he carefully stepped down the bank and crouched down before reaching out to tap the ice. I wondered if it was something new for him to see, he certainly acted so.

I crossed the parking lot and passed the groups of Japanese tourists reboarding their buses, off to some new destination to explore. I intended to head straight back to the train station, but as I crossed over a small bridge, to my left was a Clog Museum and the Kooijman Wooden Shoe Workshop . I couldn’t pass that up. On entry I was faced with a glass wall containing many, many pairs of wooden shoes dating back hundreds of years. Different shapes, different colours and, apparently, different purposes. As I was looking at a pair of black painted wooden clogs an elderly man and woman stepped behind me and he leaned in and said to me “The black ones are reserved for Sundays, that’s the day everyone dresses in black and heads to church.”  I settled on a bench and watched a video on the making of wooden shoes, and it was actually quite fascinating to see them being manufactured. Though mostly made for tourists today, they are still worn by some fishermen and farmers and are recognized as government approved safety footwear.

I bought a trio of carved wooden tulips and then wandered over another bridge and across the fields, past an old barrel making business, back through the now awake village, and past a small cafe with a classic old mailbox standing out against its brick wall, and some colourful squash on a table outside, both of which caught my eye.

As I walked back through the town I was caught in that pervasive scent again…. bitter, burnt…. unpleasant, but not really. I walked back past the factory and this time I looked up at its smokestack…then I realized what the smell was. This was a chocolate factory! The smell was cocoa being processed. Cool! This side trip was well worth it.

I arrived at the train station and saw that I had a wait of about 20 minutes before the train was to arrive. In typical fashion the previous train had been here mere seconds before I’d arrived. I settled on a bench and pulled out my sandwich to ease the grumble in my tummy. I took a few photos, watched some men painting trim around the windows of the station, and marvelled at the number of bicycles in the park and ride (which has an even more environmentally friendly meaning here than it does back home) and passed the time watching other trains fly on through. A young blonde woman and her companion stepped on to the landing and looked around. She approached me and said “Excuse me…? in a British accent”  When I turned and said “yes?” a smile split her face and she said “Oh, you speak English!” which I thought funny since I’d only encountered one person since arriving in Amsterdam that didn’t speak English, yet everyone tended to speak to me in Dutch by default. She asked if the train to Amsterdam stopped here and I said yes, it would be along in about eight minutes. She asked how long it took to get to Amsterdam Centraal and I told her it would take about 15 minutes. She thanked me and they went inside to warm up. I wondered how they got here if they didn’t come by train.

The train ride back was speedy and it was a good thing that the young couple didn’t follow me onto the same car because I wasn’t paying attention to the ride or the stop names and I saw what I thought was the same station cover as where I began and hopped off, too late realizing I’d gotten off one stop too early. I had to climb the stairs and figure out when and where the next train was coming, not the same platform I had been deposited on apparently. So a brief wait, a new train, and I was back on track and got off at the right stop this time.

From Amsterdam Centraal I hopped on the number 5 tram and rode it all the way to Rijksmuseum to pick up the rest of the museum I’d failed to completely explore yesterday. It turned out I hadn’t missed as much as I thought I had, but it was nice to view the Rembrandt paintings again. And as I was leaving the last gallery I stopped to admire an interesting display of old locks and keys. In a strange way it reminded me of the displays of such hardware at Lee Valley Tools, just a little more authentic and valuable, and a lot more elaborate.

I sent Kirk a text that I was heading back to the hotel and would join him for dinner. I thought it was just us and his colleagues. Turned out that it was a manufacturer putting on the dinner and Kirk’s company had received an award from them and was putting on a celebratory dinner at a very high end Italian restaurant downtown. Damn, I had to be social with more people than I intended. Oh well, dinner and drinks were on the house so who was I to argue. So we changed and took a tram downtown and walked a block or two to find the restaurant. It was up in the rafters of an old canal house and provided quite the view over the city lights. The Prosecco and wine flowed, and the food was delicate and elaborate – salmon tartare, a delicious salad, risotto with squid ink sauce (there is something strange about eating a black sauce), roast guinea fowl (which when it arrived seemed more like a sparrow on the plate – I am told that the Italians like to roast tiny birds, but I think this had to have been a small quail rather than a guinea fowl), and tiramisu to round it out.  It was delicious, but I have to admit that I couldn’t finish the salmon tartare, I just can’t do raw fish. I had a few bites and Kirk was surprised I managed as much as I did, and then we did a quick plate switch.

It was late by the time we left and walked back down the street to find a tram back to our hotel. Long day, long night. But such a wonderful city.