Dateline: Amsterdam Wednesday 13th April 2011

By 9:00 am we're on the bus to Zaanse Schans, about 50mins outside Amsterdam.  Inside the bus is a sign advising that a video camera is monitoring the passengers.  It says, in Dutch,  ". . . camerabewaking".  I guess that is Dutch for camera surveillance. Don't you just love the Dutch language :).

Zaanse Schans is an area set aside to preserve the era of the Windmills.  Most of the windmills are maintained by volunteers.  It is very neat and well kept. In the past there were literally thousands of windmills along the rivers.   Some of the few remaining windmills and houses have been relocated to this area to create working village as it would have been at that time.

At last a pair of shoes that fit my big feet

 We start at the Clog Maker.  He demonstrates how to make clogs (klompen).  It took many hours to make them by hand, however now a machine can produce them within minutes.  They are actually very practical footwear since they protect the feet from injury.
On to the windmills.  The first one is used for producing chalk for paint, another for extracting oil from nuts and finally the sawmill.  They use this windmill's power to drag huge logs from the water and mill the timber more precisely than modern tools.   In fact there is quite a demand for such precisely sawn timber. The guide for the sawmill tour visits Australia regularly house sitting in Wahroonga and the Gold Coast in January.  Not a bad life!

Making clogs

 We drop into the cheese factory to sample the cheese (Very tasty!) and the bakery before heading back to Amsterdam.

 Late afternoon we make our way to the Anne Frank house.  The line stretches around the corner so we decide to find somewhere for dinner and wait a bit longer.  By 7:30 the number of people waiting is reasonable so we join the line.  Well worth the effort, it is a moving tribute to Anne Frank's family and the 107,000 Jews who were deported to the the extermination camps in Poland during WWII.  Only 5000 survived.


Next:  On the move again.  Amsterdam to Rome.

If people from Poland are called ""poles"" are people from Holland called ""holes?""