Zaandam and Zaanse Schans

 Zaandam

19 March 2016
Zaandam is not like the other cities in Netherlands. Here we can not easily spot old buildings or windmills. When we stepped outside the train station, we were welcomed by unique shape with the dominant color green buildings. For this trip, we brought our bikes. We can put our bikes in the parking area besides the train station.





Zaandam is only 1 hour by train from Den Haag. It was very easy to explore the city on foot. The shopping esplanade is connected with the train station. One of the most eye catching building is the Inntel Hotel. In this shopping esplanade, we can find most of the international brand stores, cafes, restaurants and also Albert Heijn supermarket.

There were two must visit historical places, Tsaar Peterhuisje (Czar Peter’s House) and Blauwe Huis van Monet (Monet’s Blue house). These two places are within walking distance from train station.
Tsaar Peterhuisje was a house where the Russian Czar Peter slept during his visit of the Zaan Region in 1667. (source: Wikipedia). The original house was wooden house, but now is surrounded by a stone building to protect it from the weather. There’s also a small garden behind the building.
Not far from Tsaar Peterhuisje, we can visit Blauwe Huis van Monet. It’s a famous building because it’s an object in Claude Monet painting during his stay in Zaandam. He stayed for four months in Zaandam and made paintings of some places in Zaandam. There’s a Monet Walking Tour to visit places where Monet made his paintings.




Zaanse Schans
From Zaandam, we went to Zaanse Schans by bike. It was very easy and comfortable to take bike as it had a clear bike line. The distance is about 6 km, and it took around 25 minutes for us to get there.

Zaanse Schans is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the Netherlands. It has windmills, canals, pretty (not so) old houses. All in one place. And it is also close to Amsterdam. We can also reach Zaanse Schans by train. Just stop at Koog-Zaandijk Station (only 2 stops from Zaandam station), and from here we can walk to the site.





Zaanse Schans is located on the east bank of the Zaan River. It has several windmills that still functioning. First building that we can see when we enter the site is Albert Heijn Museum. Albert Heijn is the biggest Dutch grocery store chain. He started business in Zaandam in 1887. Too bad, it was closed when we arrived there.

Just keep walking, then we arrive at first windmill. It’s a museum shop and we can enter for free. Inside, we can see how the windmill makes the grind works. For others windmills, we can also enter with a small fee.

In this site, we can also visit the Zaans Museum. But since we were focusing on the windmills and houses, when we got there it had already closed. The museum open from 10 am – 5 pm. According to the information, we can see the ship models, paintings and other objects related to the history of ship and whaling in the area.

Some others museum that we can visit are Catharina Hoeve the cheese farm, they sell many kind of cheese. We can taste the sample of the cheese before buy it. Another museum that quite interesting is Klompenmakerij De Zaanse Schans, it is a wooden shoe workshop. Inside we can see through video how to make wooden shoe/clog. They also had display the clog making machine. They sell clogs with so many design and size, and also the raw clog (if we are interested to make our own design).

There were still so many museum that we can visit, such as Cocoa Museum, Dutch Clock Museum, Bakery Museum, but we could not make it, since all the museum closed at 6 pm.


After had some quick snack (because it's also almost closing time) with hot chocolate at the pancake restaurant De Kraai, we went back. This time we bike just to Koog-Zaandijk Station (not until Zaandam), take the train then made interchange at Schipol and finally arrive at 8 pm at Den Haag. We had our dinner at Si Des before going home.