Zaanse Schans and the Afsluitdijk — Windmills and the Great Dike

Two ways of living below sea level, one day

The Zaanse Schans is how the Dutch dealt with water for three hundred years: windmills pumping polders dry and, along the Zaan, grinding, sawing and pressing whatever the ships brought in. The Afsluitdijk is what they did once they had steam and concrete — they closed off a sea.

Seeing both in a day makes sense of the country in a way neither does alone. The mills are charming; the dike is enormous. Together they are the story.

The windmills first, while it is quiet

We are at the Zaanse Schans by half past nine, before the coaches. Six working windmills along the river, a carver turning a block of poplar into a wooden shoe in five minutes, and a cheese farm that hands out samples until you give in and buy some. Two hours is right — enough to go inside a mill and watch the machinery work.

Then north, to the dike

From the windmills it is an hour and a quarter up the A7, past Hoorn and out across the polders. Then the land simply stops and the road carries on: thirty-two kilometres of dike, the Wadden Sea on your left and the IJsselmeer on your right.

We stop at the monument, at the point where the last gap was closed on 28 May 1932. There is a tower to climb and a place to eat. From the top you can see both bodies of water at once — one salt, one fresh, kept apart by what you are standing on — and that view is the reason we drive this far.

Who this day is for

Anyone who liked the windmills and wants to understand what came after. Anyone interested in engineering, big landscapes, or how a country that is largely below sea level stays dry. It is a quieter day than Volendam and Marken, with more driving and fewer crowds.

Bring a jacket. It is always windy on the dike.