Zaanse Schans, Netherlands

Waking up after a cold night is pretty hard and getting out of bed today was a huge task. Today we were going to the outskirts of Amsterdam and into the greenery that old Netherlands had to offer.

We were going to the Zaanse Schans region which was an industrial region at the time. There were many museums and also some of the houses of the locals houses still standing. It is a great place for tourists as it is informative.

We first visited the clog factory and saw a demonstration on how a clog was made. They first used to do it by hand in 3-4 hours but now they can do it in 5 minutes by a machine.  The piece of wood would go through 2 separate machines which would carve out the interior and exterior respectively.

What was also really cool was that the clogs were in shape of roller skates and skis.

The next house we visited was of the weavers. The house was pretty small considering the fact that two families had to live there and work there for 12 hours a day. They had looms that needed to be managed by men because of the immense power that was needed. One more fascinating thing about the weaver’s cottage was that the bed for the children were so small. We 4 could barely fit!

Next we saw the cheese factory where they explained the entire process of making cheese from start to finish. From the churning to the soaking everything and we’re even given samples to taste. The Green Pesto is really good.

Here came the highlight of the trip and one thing that Holland is famous for: Windmills. There were about 700 windmills back in day but now only 4 remain in the Zaanse Schans region.

The windmills were used for a number of reasons like to grind flour and dyes and also pump water upstream. The cogs turn when the wind blows the windmill into one direction.  When an Archimedes screw is positioned with the cogs it pumps the water upstream.

After lunch, we moved to the museum and biscuit and chocolate factory. The museum described the Zhaan region and what companies emerged here and what kind of jobs there were. For instance the famous supermarket store in the Netherlands Albert Heijn originated from here. It told us about the different industries like rice, windmill, cacao and other things.

Along with this beautiful handcrafted museum we saw the biscuit and chocolate factory. They explained the process of making biscuits from scratch and was an eventful and meaningful display. After pressing some random buttons, we all sat in the bus back home.

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