Amsterdam- Day 3- Clogs, Windmills, & Cheese- oh my!

In typical fashion, there’s always something stereotypical that I get in my head before we go to a new country. In Argentina, it was tango. In Budapest, it was the baths. In the Netherlands, it’s windmills.  Thankfully we’re both game to occasionally play the tourist card in a big way, so this morning we headed out to a town called Zaanse Schans.  From the Centraal train station, it’s about a 20 minute train ride and then a 15 minute walk from there to this little slice of Holland—nice and easy for a quick half day trip!

The best parallel I can draw is a mini colonial Williamsburg; this is clearly a tourist destination but as long as you accept that, it was definitely cool to see some of the oldest surviving windmills rotating in the strong wind.  Zaanse Schans itself was an industrial hub in the 1700s and 1800s—one of the mainstays was shipbuilding but also producing everything from paper and oil to chocolate and starch.  History is covered in a suprisingly modern museum on the grounds that describes the town’s heritage and also has a separate section dedicated to the Verkaden biscuit and chocolate factory.  The latter was pretty fun and interactive with games to have you digitally sort cookies and chocolates into their boxes—Bren and I clearly took up the challenge and needless to say, he crushed me. 

After having some fun inside and returning to a better temperature (it was freezing and the wind was so strong in this area!!), we stopped by their restaurant on property to have Dutch pancakes, popped into the clog shop, and then went to investigate the windmills. Since windmills are clearly not an important part of industry anymore, there aren’t many left so we were pretty excited to get to see a cluster together—definitely more visually impactful than a one-off.  The windmills had been around since the late 1600s so it was a neat slice of the past, especially when contrasted with the dozens of wind turbines we passed on the train ride out.

Headed back to the city around mid-day and had a few more things we wanted to see, but really just wanted to spend our last afternoon in the city wandering the charming streets and canals we had fallen in love with.  In a desperate attempt to see some tulips (note: we are definitely coming back for when the tulips bloom and to go to Gouda!), we stopped by the Blomenmarket.  Described as a floating flower market, this was really just a bunch of cheezy tourist stalls this time of year.  We quickly walked through it and returned to the areas we preferred strolling. 

 For a mouse like me, a good cheese shop was definitely on the list and we found it in De Kaaskamer.  Awesome little store and luckily they will vacuum-pack it for you, so hopefully we will have some great Dutch cheese at home for a bit as a souvenir (fingers crossed). 

Wandered around this area and then through the Jordaan until we started getting tired, hopped a tram back to our lovely home and did some packing.  Last stop of the day was dinner at Kip et T’ij (Chicken & The Egg), for a great comfort meal of chicken, frites, local beer etc—the perfect end to our wonderful weekend in Amsterdam!