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Published: July 15th 2018
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Our bus tour was due to start at 12.00; so we headed for Damrak, just after 11 o’clock. We managed to arrive at 26 Damrak, the bus tour company’s office at 11:45. The tour guide greeted us and gave each of us a purple colour ring to distinguish from other tour parties. At 11.55, we were asked to walk to the road facing to the Centraal Station and get on the double-decker bus. There were loads of people, approximately 60 people, joining the tour. The bus departed exactly at 12 o’clock. This bus tours to run for 7 hours and take us to several places – Zaanse schans Windmill Heritage Park; folk museum, cheese factory, Dutch Waffle bakery house in Vodendam; and Wooden clog shoe factory in Marken. The tour guide spoke three languages including English, and emphasized the importance of being punctual for the time all the time.
Our first stop was Zaanse schans Windmill Heritage Park. I visited there in summer 1995 and remembered its flatland countryside, windmills and green & black façade cottages. The guide said that: ‘You can see quite a few boats stationed at the edges of the canals; in fact, many of
these boats are permanent residential houses and there are quite a few people living in the lowlands for their industry and livelihood – farming, operating the mills, fishing and maintaining the lowland area. Each windmill has distinctive name.’ We were invited to one of the sawmills called Young Sheep and saw the operation of sawing timber. We picked up the information leaflet and learned that there used to be over 1,000 windmills operating in the 17-18
th century, but only 20 remained in the 1920s. In 1925, Windmill Society De Zaanesche Molen was founded to preserve the mills for future generations. All the operating windmills seemed to have kept in excellent condition as of 2018, and it showed tourists a good picture of ‘the heyday’, together with a number of souvenir shops and stunning pasturelands.
Next, the bus headed for Vodendam. Vodendam and Marken seemed to be located next to each other, and according to the guide’s commentary, that although the central government have technically merged these two fishing villages, both of their communities insist in retaining their own identities and livelihood: they have been the rivals since Marken’s peninsula was separated from the mainland.
We got off at the Folk Museum in Vodendam. The museum houses a wealth of historic documents and exhibitions rooms illustrating life of the fishing villages – trading, collecting shells and running fishing school. There used to be a big cigar factory – we admired the mosaic of the Holland’s landmarks which were made of seals of the cigars.
Next, we headed for harbour via the quiet residential district. The guide said each residential house has a different featured door from their neighbours while they are living in a part of the semi-detached houses.
We reached the picturesque harbour of Vodendam around 2.30 and went to the cheese factory shop. We were invited to the lecture room downstairs adjacent to the workshop where Edam cheeses had been processed. A Dutch lady gave us a presentation in fluent English and explained that Edam cheeses are made of fresh cow/goat milk. We tried several varieties of flavoured cheeses and bought a couple of packets of cheese biscuits.
It was 3 o’clock when we reached the recommended restaurant. Standing in front of the harbour, this restaurant offered delicious cooked fished and freshly cooked chips.
Lots of young waiters and waitresses were working and serving us in a friendly and efficient manner. I have to say ‘haddock’ was delicious – a lot tastier than the one I’ve had in Britain – but I had to eat the cooked meal very quickly and it caused me to have indigestion afterwards.
We came back to the tour at 4.20, and entered the bakery shop to listen to the demonstration of the Dutch waffle. The show room presented the bakery’s kitchen with an old-fashioned oven, scale and equipment. There were varied flavoured for Dutch waffles. I bought the Dutch waffle at the airport.
At 5 o’clock we all headed for the ferry terminal and got on a boat for Marken. Marken forms a peninsula in the Markenmeer and formerly an island of the Zeuderzee – it can be reached only by boat in summer.
Like Vodendam, an array of wooden houses stood, but the guide pointed at the unique structure: ‘These houses’ bases were built in higher level than the ground to prevent flood. We were asked to follow on the board walkway, which was built in a slightly
higher than the ground level.
After following the board walkway, we reached the clog’s workshop and its shop. This clog workshop was festooned with wooden shoes which had been produced in this workshop. It seemed that a piece of wood can be shaped into shoe by the programmed systems in the machine, but yet subtle cuttings for particular shapes have to be executed manually. There were a wide variety of items sold in the souvenir shop; we found many items are typically Dutch. Clogs were used not only inside the house but canes surrounding the front yard. They were decorated with colourful flowers and looked very pretty.
We left the Clog’s shoe workshop at 6 o’clock. The bus driver took the different route back to Amsterdam to show us different features of North Holland.
The bus came back to Amsterdam at exactly 7 o’clock. We really enjoyed this bus tour – we were shown the scenes of the Dutch countryside and livelihood of two distinctive fishing villages
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