G & J away from home

Sunday, 16 May

This afternoon we went on one of the excursions we would have gone on when we arrived in Amsterdam on the Vista; visiting the 'traditional' windmill village at Zaanse Schans.  This is a village relocated historic buildings set up s a village in some very pretty scenery.  It has the usual tourist demonstrations (windmills, cheese-making, clog-making) and shops but the setting is so large that even with 25+ tourist buses in the car park it was just busy rather than cripplingly over-crowded.

The morning's rain had pretty much stopped by the time we set out at 1.30pm - thank goodness - but the wind was still blowing and over the very, very flat land there doesn't seem to be anything to stop it!  With two sweatshirts on Gary was still freezing and took any opportunity to find shelter during the village walk - even behind trees.

Gary sheltering from the wind

These particular trees (willows) are pruned like this every two years - and naturally Gary approved! One of our fellow New Zealanders in the party took this photo - just t prove that we are both on this holiday.  I was very glad of my coat with its warm lining.

Both of us at the Zaanse Schans village

 As I said the village covered a huge area, and it included canals and pint-sized canal draining windmills as well as fields and livestock.  Very pretty.

View across one of the many canals

The village has people living in it, with their cats (saw two, one black and white and one all white) and dogs, plus very pretty gardens.  The historic houses are rented to people who want to live in the village and cost considerably more than ordinary rentals.

Bluebells?

Pets allowed - Gary finds a friend

As well as the pets and livestock (sheep mainly) there were other birds and I got a photo of this wading bird as well as a pair of  smaller birds (black with a white nose) and their three chicks.

Wading bird of some kind

[Petra has emailed to tell me the names of the birds: "The black one with the white beak is called a 'Meerkoet' (Eurasian Coot). And the wading bird is called a 'Blauwe Reiger' (Grey Heron). They are quite common around waterways outside of the city."  Thanks Petra!]

The path around the village to the windmills skirted this inlet (?) which gave a nice view of the windmills.  They were certainly flapping away in the wind we were experiencing.

Windmills!

 And for my niece, the flag-guru, the Dutch flag that was flying outside the windmill we toured inside:

Dutch flag flapping in the wind

We went inside the windmill but I became separated from the group somehow.  Never mind.  I was here to investigate windmills and so investigate I did - climbing up the steep stairs (more like a ladder) to the upper level where all the wooden gears were clattering away, and then up again to the deck around the windmill that gave access to the steering mechanism.  It was very high and the blades of the windmill flapped around very close-by making a huge noise - plus the gaps in the deck were a couple of inches wide so I could see straight down ...  I spent most of my time up there edging around close to the thatched roof, until I saw Gary down below and worked my way slowly over near the rail so he could take my photo.  (The stupid rail was angled OUTWARDS so you had to lean out to hold onto it.  Not that I was about to do something crazy like that!)

Me (purple bit just right of the wheel) being brave on the windmill deck

While up on the deck I was able to get a nice photo looking down on one of the neighbouring windmills.

Another windmill

Then we toured the cheese making demonstration, then the clog-making demo, the highlight of which was the man telling us that the clogs were shaped up while the wood was wet - then blowing into one which made water pour out of the wood.  I knew about wood being 'wet' but that was an awesome way of showing it.  (The wood was either poplar or willow, if that makes a difference.)

Gary tries the clogs on for size

 And eventually we got back into the bus (oh to be out of the wind!) and headed home.  Just as we were coming n the door of the hotel we heard a huge horn go off.  Obviously a boat horn - a BIG boat horn as it turned out as when we walked into our room it was to see the cruise ship that had been docked next-door pulling away.  We watched it slowly work its way out of this very narrow waterway.

Celebrity Silhouette leaves port

An excellent afternoon.
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