Zaanse Schans, Holland

The weekend following our trip to Salzburg, we drove to Holland with our good friends Kyle and Tiffany.

Exit sign reads, Uit (Ausfart in Germany)

Sites around the city

Once we got our bearings, we rode a free water taxi to Zaanse Schans, a re-constructed historic Zaansee village, typical of the 17th and 18th centuries. Located in Zaandam on the river Zaan, the village contains green wooden homes, workshops, museums and historic windmills. For you Iowans reading this blog, it is similar to the historic village in Pella, Iowa.


First, we visited the Museum van het Nederlandse Uurwerk (Museum of the Dutch Clock)

The pendulum clock was invented by the Dutch scientist and astronomer, Christiaan Huygens, in 1656. It increased the accuracy of the clock to within a minute a day.

Oldest known Dutch domestic clock with chimes

Longcase clocks with models of the solar system (planetarium) or celestial dials (planisphaerium) are characteristic for the Netherlands of the 18^th century, as knowledge of celestial position was essential for seafaring. The planisphaerium (blue celestial dial) of the longcase clock below shows time in 17 cities in all of the continents, date and month, signs of zodiac (name and picture), position of the sun in the constellations, time of sunrise and sunset as well as age and phase of the moon. The dial shows hours, minutes, seconds, date, day of the week in name, picture and astrological sign.

Longcase clock with Planisphaerium (1755)


Werkplaats Horlogemaker (Clockmaker's Workshop)

Tinnegieterij or pewter foundry

Walking around the village...




We had lunch at 'De Kraai' (the crow) restaurant, serving Dutch pancakes (similar to crepes)

Apple and Cinnamon Pannenkoeken- yuuuumy!

Kyle and Tiffany

After lunch, we visited the Klompenmakerij or wooden shoe workshop.

At the workshop, we were able to:
...sit in a giant wooden shoe

...try on very large wooden shoes

...peruse a collection of both odd and beautiful wooden shoes

...see a wooden shoe workshop

...watch a demonstration of wooden shoe making

...try on some of the correctly sized wooden shoes

...marvel at another giant wooden shoe

...and purchase some of our very own wooden shoes (even if they are small enough to fit on our Christmas tree)

We also visited the Kaasmakerij or cheese farm. We didn't learn much about cheese making, but we did get to sample as many pieces of cheese as we wanted. The 'old goat cheese' was by far our favorite. Unfortunately, the cheese was pretty pricey, and we decided that we have a good enough selection of cheeses at our local German grocery store.
In the Zaan region, where trees couldn't find hold in the soggy soil, people discovered wind speed as a power source. Between 1600 and 1900, some 1100 mills were built in the Zaanstreek. In 1593, Cornelis Corneliszoon built a mill with a connecting rod that could move a set of saws back and forth to cut logs into planks. This marked the beginning of the Zaanstreek milling industry, including oil mills, paint mills, cocoa mills, mustard mills, and mills for husking rice and barley.

Het Jonge Schaap (the young sheep), locally called ‘t Skaapie (little lamb), was a saw mill built in 1680 in Westzaandam. Although steam and electricity were replacing most wind mills, an Amsterdam timber merchant purchased Het Jonge Schaap mill in 1888 and kept it in use for many years. Despite preservation efforts to maintain this mill as a cultural monument, the last owners had the mill demolished in 1942. Shortly before the mill was demolished, precise measurements were recorded, making it possible for a preservation society to reconstruct the mill sixty years later (see below).

We were able to go inside the mill to see wood being cut, which was pretty cool. They even had a system for collecting the saw dust underneath the saws on the ground floor.
This was a real learning experience for me, as I had no idea that wind mills were designed for a specific industrial purpose. Although we only went inside the saw mill, Zaanse Schans also has a mustard mill, paint mill, water mill and oil mill (see below) as well as a grinding and whetstone mill.

'Het Jonge Schaap', Houtzaagmolen (saw mill)

'De Zoeker', Oliemolen (oil mill)- This mill was built in 1672 and was moved to Zaanse Schans in 1968. It's job is to grind and pound nuts and seeds to produce oil.

'De Hadel', Weidemolen (water mill)- The sails on this mill turn a paddle that push stagnant water through canals to ditches in meadow or pastureland.