I had set my alarm last night so we could get up early to see De Zaanse Schans today. We were told by Jerome & Claude’s friend who we met in Hong Kong that it’s definitely worth going to see. It’s a little historic ‘town’ with a museum not far from Amsterdam where they showcase old Holland.
The Zaanse Schans website tells us that it’s easy enough to find our way there: “Only four stops (20 minutes) by train from Amsterdam Central Station. Take the stop train direction Alkmaar to Koog-Zaandijk. From the station simply follow the signs to the Zaanse Schans. It is ten minute walk from the station.” The second sentence seems a little garbled but it’s important to the planning process of the journey. It’s not too easy to understand, although I think I know what it means. I buy the tickets from the station ticket office from Amsterdam Centraal to Koog-Zaandijk and notice that the train to Alkmaar is leaving in two minutes so we run to the platform. We arrive at the platform before the train and it’s definitely the right train: the Alkmaar train. We’ll just get off at Koog-Zaandijk. Along the train ride we notice huge industrial electricity-generating windmills. It’s great to see so much renewable energy! We stop at the fourth station and it’s not Koog-Zaandijk. I ask a girl on the train but she has never heard of that station. Next stop: Alkmaar, the end of the line. We are on the wrong train.
I run inside the Alkmaar station and ask the lady what happened. She said we are a long way from Koog-Zaandijk and we’ll need to buy more tickets to go from Alkmaar to Koog-Zandijk by taking a train to Uitgeest, change trains, then continue to Koog-Zaandijk. So much for getting up early! We eventually make it to the train station for De Zaanse Schans not too long before lunch time.The first thing we notice as we approach De Zaanse Schans is cocoa in the air. It’s not quite what we were expecting but it is an amazing smell. If you close your eyes, the cocoa factory turns old Holland into a Willy Wonka factory. Diamonds and now chocolate: is there anything the Dutch don’t do? From dreamy air to windy air, we now see the windmills at De Zaanse Schans. Those gorgeous thatch-roofed windmills, green painted walls, and colourful sails that spin around and around. We must go in one!
We find an info map machine and I pull the handle down with brute force to eject a map. We start with the museum, which is quite interesting, but in the gift shop all we buy is some chocolate. Then we continue to the clogs store, past the bakery, and stop to sit on a bench next to the antique store. The old lady from the antiques store comes out from her lunch break, all hunched over and looking like an antique herself, to put some non-descript object in the back yard and to yell at some people that she isn’t open yet. She looks like the cat woman from the Simpsons. No joke. We’re waiting for the bakery to re-open after lunch because we’re starving. It opens shortly after and we find there’s no food for sale. It’s just a museum-like set-up to see what the store used to be like. Hunger gets the better of us and we open the chocolate.
We wander around to the windmill and go inside. It is amazing. Although the design is simple, there are many moving parts that would have taken a very long time to figure out. It’s huge, too. I really am in awe of these incredible machines. I can see how the Dutch were the most advanced civilisation in Europe about four hundred years ago.
We’re more than hungry now and we hoe into the chocolate but it isn’t really doing it for us. So we leave Zaanse Schans and head back over the bridge just before the mid-section rises again to let another boat with a tall mast through. On the other side of the bridge is a bar/restaurant. It has an outdoor section by the river covered in sand, very much like the beach. It’s very cute. We stop there for some lunch and a drink.
Getting back to Amsterdam doesn’t take very long at all… about 10 minutes. Funny that. Our boat ticket is still valid so we should use that. Mum isn’t too comfortable with taking the cruise because she doesn’t want to get motion sickness but she gives it a go anyway. After a few false starts of trying to find the boat, we sit down next to a well-dressed older woman. There aren’t any other seats left. Just as we take off in the beautiful sun with a sensational light breeze, the younger of the two older men in front of us, obviously father and son, stands up and shuts the ceiling glass window. Mum gets quite upset and says “no, no!” She looks at the older lady with one of those looks that asks, “that’s crap, isn’t it?” It’s quiet warm already and the wooden-framed glass ceiling just blocks the view for people trying to take photos looking upwards. Mum really needs air flowing so I open the side window next to us. The lady with us looks relieved. The old man sitting in front slightly next to the window tries to close it but I tap him on the arm and explain that Mum needs air or she’ll be sick. Shortly after, the captain notices the glass top closed, looks a bit miffed, and then re-opens it. Now everything is open – haha! I help take a photo of the lady because she is on her own.About three-quarters of the way through the cruise, the same son gets up to shut the glass top again and everyone looks miffed this time. The captain doesn’t notice. Mum looks to the woman beside her who doesn’t know much English for support again by using a strained and upset face and slapping her hand to show the universal ‘naughty’ sign.
We hear more of the history of Amsterdam as we almost have a collision with an oncoming cruise boat and a couple in a foot-powered paddle boat. All jokes aside, I’d definitely recommend this cruise. As we dock at the end of the cruise. Everyone gets off the boat and Mum and I start walking up the road. We turn back to check the traffic before crossing the road and notice the older woman who was sitting with us is with the two older men who were in front of us. Oh god, she’s married to the old guy who always wanted everything closed! Oops.Bushed again. Our feet are sore but we’re not too hungry. We really need to catch a tram back to the hotel; however, I don’t have enough cash in my wallet so I withdraw some from the nearest ATM. Unfortunately, the money is all in €50 notes. I don’t think the tram driver will be too pleased with that so we decide to have some soup at a nearby restaurant to receive some change. While we’re sitting eating our dinner, a group of young guys and girls are on a pontoon in the river getting undressed to their underwear and jumping in! It must be freezing. Crazy! We work out that we have about 50 minutes of Internet left at the hotel for Mum to make a call back home so we do our best to hurry back by tram. Last stop straight after the tram is to drop in at the Indonesian restaurant where I left my umbrella the night before… got it, let’s go. We’re back in time. Mum calls home and then we pack our suitcases ready for our flight tomorrow morning.Pics of the day
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder