Zaanse Schans

Our last day in Amsterdam. We went on an excursion to a village that was still lived in but consisted of windmills and historic buildings from all over the Zaan region, that had been rebuilt there with the purpose of preserving the traditional way of Dutch life. It was raining really hard when we got there, but that cleared and we were able to walk around without getting wet. 

First off, we had a short demo on making cheese before being let loose in the village itself. 

There were a lot of windmills, and they were all working.  Chalk was being ground in one and oil in another. 

After the windmills we had a demo of clog making.  Very easy these days with modern machinery - not so easy in the days when it was all done by hand. 

The block of wood above was turned into the clog, below in about eight minutes, using two machines. 

The first created the rough shape, the second scooped out the inside of the clog. The clogs ends were then cleaned up by hand, with a vicious looking blade. 

It is not only tourists who purchase the finished products - the Dutch still  like to use them for working outside in the garden. 

Tomorrow morning we leave on the Thalys train for France.