Windmills of Zaanse Schaans:
A Travel Guide

You know what gets me about the Netherlands? They’re just SO DUTCH!

Take the windmills thing, for example. Ok guys, we get. You’re master engineers, able to raise the polders out of the very seas themselves and convert them into useable land. There’re what, 24 main polders across the country? That’s cool! But, it it really necessary to have sooo many windmills?!

Millners' Town — River rest, overlooking the Zaanse Schaans windmills.

I mean, just look at Zaanse Schaans! Only an hour from Centraal Amsterdam on the 91 bus, yet you’d think the place was the capital of some sort of ancient freakish windmill-worshipping cargo cult. Chocolate windmills? Oil mills? Mustard mills and paint mills? Is it truly necessary to have automated EVERYTHING in Dutch industry by the end of the 18th century?

Dutch Landscapes — Even on the way out of Zaanse Schaans, smaller modern windmills dot the fields.

Of course, you say, there used to be thousands of windmills along the Zaanse River here, and these few that remain are but an ode to their past glory.

To me though? I dunno, seems a bit much.

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Zaanse Schaans is crazy easy to get to on your own. Just head behind Amsterdam’s Centraal Station and look for a bus that heads directly there. If you’re not comfortable heading out on your own, though, I was there as a photographer with GetYourGuide and the Amsterdam Half-Day to Windmills, Volendam, and Marken tour combines Zaanse Schaans with two other villages into one trip. I felt like it was a bit rushed in each place, but perhaps you’d prefer the ease of not having to organize transport.