De Zaanse Schans

(April 13) De Zaanse Schans is a heritage project and tourist attraction just north of Amsterdam, where there are several working traditional windmills surrounded by souvenir shops and restaurants.  The windmills are sited along the edge of the Zaan River, which provided the transport route for materials to and from the mills.  There are a variety of mills demonstrating the various jobs the mills were set up to do, which included sawmills for timber; a chalk-crushing mill for making dyes and coloured chalks for artists; a cocoa mill for grinding beans to cocoa powder (for chocolate); a rape seed mill to extract oil; and a mustard mill.  Two of these mills are in their original locations but the rest were brought here from further afield and reconstructed, to preserve them.  These mills date from about 1750.

We were able to tour inside two of the mills - the chalk (dye) mill, and a sawmill.  The huge wooden cogwheels and other machinery inside are fascinating.  The sawmill was actually cutting up logs to demonstrate how it worked, and the staff are keen to share their extensive knowledge of these machines.

We took the train from Haarlem Station.

On the bridge a Zaanse Schans, windmills yonder.

This one grinds chalk.

The chalk-grinding wheels were not turning today, but the huge wooden cogs above were going.  In the same windmill are a stone-breaking stamper, and a large mortar and pestle, all able to be driven by the windmill.  We took quite a bit of video showing everything working.

The bridge was raised to let this sailing ship pass.

Lisa and Adam up on the deck of one windmill, providing good views of the others.

The supply of logs outside the sawmill.

The sawmill was in full swing, with five blades sawing a log into planks.

Most of these windmills here were brought from elsewhere and reconstructed.  There were once hundreds in this area.  Many were burnt down after their brakes overheated!  The brakes relied on friction between two wooden parts rubbing together which could produce a lot of heat.  Buckets of water were kept handy in case things got out of control.

The drawings used to reconstruct one windmill.

Spring is coming and their are ducklings everywhere.

There is water everywhere!

Clog-making demonstration

The last place we visited was the wooden clog makers.  Fighting our way through the rapidly growing crowds of tourists we watched the man above demonstrating how the art of clog-making has been largely replaced by machines.  In just a few minutes he turned a lump of wood into a clog.  First a "copying lathe" cut it to the right shape in about one minute; then two more machines where used to hollow it out to fit the foot.  Normally it is then sanded and finished by hand.