Well done Liz, Lily and Aysha!
This morning, Liz, TRO and myself headed off to Zaanse Schans. This is a little bit like our Sovereign Hill, with windmills, small wooden houses, and old industrial buildings. There is a distillery as well, and with the obligatory coffee stop, we were offered a very small glass of their liqueur, topped by cream. This was so nice TRO purchased a bottle to bring home. It's a combination of brandy, rum and gin.
Our second stop was the wooden shoe workshop, which had an impressive display of clogs, along with the history of them. Many of the clogs are actually working clogs, this pair are fishermen's ice clogs, you can see the spikes on the bottom of them. Amongst the working clogs were some that actually looked like rubber boots.
If you were to be married, the bridegroom carved a pair of clogs for his bride by hand, as an expression of love, and they were worn with pride once a couple was engaged. The birds on these symbolizes fertility.
Some of the old homes built along the canal. Most of these were freestanding, which is very rare to see.
There are still a number of working windmills at the Zaanse Schans, used to press oil, saw wood, grind spice or make paper. We toured one grinding cinnamon, there was a most delightful aroma in the mill, and at the other end of the mill, a shop selling all manner of spices.
In this next photo, you just make out the Zaan River on the right, and a canal on the left. We were actually walking on a dyke that held the windmills. The river was higher than the canals.
The polder, an area of reclaimed land, is a typical example if the soft boggy pastureland of the region; long narrow parcels of low lying land surrounded by drainage channels. The water in the polder, now a nature reserve, is regulated by watermills. As you drive through the country, this is pretty much what you see, although in the spring, there are many fields of beautifully colored tulips.
(Aerial photographs of tulip fields in the Netherlands by Normann Szkop)
Another lovely day, with the sushi to finish.
Location: Leiderdorp,The Netherlands
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