Zaanse Schans

According to the tour book, Zaanse Schans is a “don’t miss.” Actually, I went on a recon mission. In a little over one month, my “unofficial” duties as a Holland Tour Guide will “officially” begin. I wanted to find out if this is one of the trips Gwaz and I or Gwaz, Jess, Marissa, and I will take in April when they visit.

Such a quaint, beautiful village

Truth be told, after an extremely productive Saturday the thought occurred to me that it was high time to see some wind mills; so off to Zaanse Schans I went.

This is why I came!

The day started with brilliant sunshine. It turned pretty cold and was snowing when we left Centraal Station as I settled in for a fifty-minute bus ride to Zaanse Schans. Those of you who know me remember me as a patient, loving, tolerant, world traveler dedicated to internationalness; right? OK not so much, but you try sitting in front of three i-talians who talked non-stop throughout the bus ride—often over each other. No kidding, I thought about borrowing their i-talian/'merican phrase book long enough to learn how to say “sssshhhhh” in Italian.

Zaanse Schans is a recreated 17^th century Dutch village on the Zaan River in the town of Zaandijk. It has a little of everything. It is all about depicting life as it used to be when windmills lined the river. (Well, that and tourist dollars. The village featured any number of souvenir shops and restaurants.) Open this day was a sawmill powered by…you guessed it…a windmill. From pay toilets to entrance fees for every attraction that was open, this little village makes its money a little at a time from the busloads of tourists who visit every day.

Despite the economics of their situation, Zaanse Schans was awesome. For a little over two hours I got an authentic glimpse of life in historic Holland.