Photos

This is a classic Dutch landscape showing a part of what was the first industrial park in Europe centuries ago on Zaan's river bank.
The first windmill is "De Gekroonde Poelenburg", a paltrok type of windmill. It is almost the last of the 200 or so wood sawing mills that were to be found in the Zaanstreek. Paltrok mills are distinctively different to most other windmill types. They have a three-sided open work floor, have a dark façade and to turn the sails into the wind the whole body of the mill is rotated with the aid of a great ring of rollers built on a brick base. Other mills have a stationary body and only the cap rotates to turn the sails.
De "Gekroonde Poelenburg" was built in 1869 in Koog aan de Zaan to replace a similar mill that was destroyed to make room for the Amsterdam – Alkmaar railway line. In 1904 it was moved to Zaandam to replace another mill that had burned down and in 1963 was dismantled, moved again, and reconstructed at its present location, the Zaanse Schans.
The second one is "De Kat" paint production windmill which is described in details in a previous posting.
The third one is the pounding nuts and seeds to make oil windmill "De Zoeker". It was built in 1672 and stood for centuries in the Guisveld to the west of Zaandijk until 1968 when it was spectacularly moved to the Zaanse Schans. The eighteen ton octagonal body of the windmill was lifted by crane over power cables and a railway line and transported by boat to its present site on the eastern bank of the river Zaan. There it was set on a previously prepared base, on the site of an old windmill "De Wind", which had been destroyed by fire. The transportation and re-location took a day and a night. A few months later "De Zoeker" was again ready for use – grinding and pounding nuts and seeds to produce oil, the only one of its kind left still daily producing oil using traditional methods.

And ofcourse the best way to see and have the feeling of the place is to go around with one of the numerous cruising boats in the river...