Thursday 26th May 2022
The wind died down overnight and this morning we made a swift journey north skirting Haarlem and Amsterdam to reach Zaanze Schans at Zaandam.
Zaanze Schans is a museum of buildings and windmills brought together from different places in Holland, it was free to enter and wander around although there was a small entry fee to go in those windmills open to the public. Some shops were being used to sell refreshments but everything was low key and not expensive.
After leaving this entertaining place we drove to the outskirts of Edam to “ Cheese and Clogs” where a a large variety of differing Edam cheeses are made and clogs for tourists manufactured.
As we walked in a coach party of Egyptians arrived, all of whom spoke English, the guide asked if we would join them for a guided tour/ demonstration. There was also a French couple there who didn’t speak English but they just had to put up with it. The two demonstrators/ guides were very entertaing and the man asked the coach party if they knew the song “ Walk Like an Egyptian” we laughed but of course the Egyptians didn’t understand.
There were loads of clogs for sale ranging from 20 euros for a very basic pair to 70 euros, there was free cheese tasting from the range they made. Young, medium and aged, smoked, and ones flavoured with garlic, chilli pepper, cumin, mustard, beer, whisky, cannabis, and nettle which we bought.
We wanted to drive into Edam and have a walk around, sadly there were virtually no car parks and non large enough to take Homer so we drove on to tonight’s stopover Strand Houtribhoek outside Lelystad. Unfortunately as the day went on the wind began to blow harder and harder which made the last part of the journey quite difficult as we drove across the Markerwaardijk or Houtribdijk which is 30 km long and very exposed to the cross wind. As we sit here the wind is buffeting Homer.
taraabit 