Amsterdam Netherlands

6 May

We took a train to Antwerp and changed trains to go to Amsterdam. We arrived a few hours before we could check in so we got lunch at a cafe right by Amsterdam Central Station. I had a roast beef sandwich with pine nuts and truffle mayo. The sandwich was great. Next we walked to a yarn shop and I got a gray skein. The brand is owned by the people who own the yarn shop (Stephen and Penelope Fine Yarns). The yarn is texel and wool. We walked around the city streets a bit and sat in a park and watched some dogs play for a little.

I had an Oreo Nutella waffle for a snack before we headed to our hotel. We took the metro to Zaanse Schans. After walking a few minutes I could smell cocoa in the air! We walked past a chocolate factory on the way to the hotel. For dinner we ate across the street. I had a pork chop with a baked apple, shallot and tomato.

7 May

First on the agenda today was seeing the mills. We walk down Zaanse Schans to the museum. At the Museum you can buy a ticket for the museum and 1 or 2 mills. At the museum I learned about the history of mills, the products made by mills, the milling process, and some meanings of different blade positions. At the peak of the milling industry there were 1000 mills along the river. As steam power became popular, mills were mostly destroyed, there are 13 mills of the originals still operating. The mill we visited was the paint mill. There was a display of the colors and the materials used to create the colors. There is a steep and narrow ladder you can take to see the internal workings of the mill and another one from there to walk outside around the mill. You can see the hotel we stayed at in the right corner of the river at the bridge. I got a couple souvenirs and gifts from the shop in the mill. A little further down was a chocolate shop with a build your own hot chocolate experience, it was warm out so I got a bag of rocky road chocolate instead.

We booked a canal cruise for the evening so we went to Amsterdam Central to walk around before the cruise. I sat in a cafe for a while and had tea and chocolate cake. On the cruise I learned a little about the architecture in Amsterdam. When houses were first built street numbers weren't used. They had a stone with the year the home was built and that was how they referred to houses. A beam was installed at the top to use a pulley system to get items into higher levels without using stairs. This mechanism is still used today and we actually saw one with rope on it tucked into the top window of the house!

Streets of Amsterdam

Cruise

Knitted Square