Catch up: Zaanse Schans

Just realized I didn’t write a post about the day before I set off for my solo adventuring… I was probably too distracted from the day’s activities, and then packing for adventures the next day!

Anyway, that day, Sjaak and Marjan took me to Zaanse Schans in North Holland, more the area where my grandfather is from. Zaanse Schans is a village in the style of 18th and 19th century Holland, full of historic buildings and windmills.

It’s very neat to walk around in; there’s all sorts of little shops and mini museums, including a cheesemaker (with many delicious samples) as well as the first Albert Heijn grocery store. People dressed in traditional costumes walk about. One of my favourite things here was the clog museum, where I learned more than I thought there was to know about the different types of clogs that exist. There were regular clogs, Sunday clogs, wedding clogs, and “extraordinary clogs”, which included clogs with blades strapped to the bottom for ice-skating and roller skating clogs. There was even a diamond clog!

We also got to watch a clog making demonstration, which was very cool! They can make a clog in about five minutes now, using machines that are similar to the type used to make keys. An already-made clog is put on one side, and a somewhat cut piece of wood goes in the other side, and then the machine follows along the design of the made clog and repeats it onto the new wood. These machines have been around for about sixty years now, making clogs efficiently. It was also cool to see the workers in the clog museum all wearing clogs around the shop – unlike the painted clogs that were for sale, the workers’ clogs were all plain wood, which is what Dutch people would actually wear for doing work in. The painted clogs are mainly for tourists.

We finished Zaanse Schans with ice cream and headed home.

In the afternoon, I went for a bike ride by myself, borrowing one of Sjaak and Marjan’s electric bikes to go to the beach. The electric bike was very nice; you still had to pedal, but the bike helped you along quite a bit. At beach I just went for a walk and walked around the shops, even buying a couple of things, before heading back. A nice, quiet day, which was good… gave me a chance to head off the next day for solo adventures feeling fully rested!

-Caelan