de schoolmeester

in june 2024 i took a trip to De Schoolmeester, the last remaining windmill paper mill. it was quite an experience and i highly highly recommend it if you are at all interested in paper making. it's a 25 minute walk to the mill from the Zaandijk Zaanse Schans train station. google will tell you it's 30 minutes and you have to do some backtracking, but in reality it's just one road and a small hill down to the mill entrance. note that you'll have to walk on the bike path, as there is no sidewalk.

the miller was very accomodating (we were the only visitors, i think, that day) and set up a video at the end of the self-guided tour that is in english and very well made. there was no papermaking going on while we were there (the miller was repairing some equipment), but as you can see below, plenty of paper was on display.

paper is available for sale, of course. and of course, i marbled it as soon as i got home. due to the thickness and coarseness of it, it is probably best suited for other applications than marbling, but fun nevertheless.

the green light in the following pictures was coming from the grass in the bright sunlight outside.

should i visit zaanse schans?

in all honesty? probably best to take some nice pictures from the bridge, smell the roasting cacao, and then buy a beer and walk over to De Schoolmeester. if you do go, i recommend bringing a sandwich and not bothering with trying to eat at the tourist-trappy restaurants. i didn't pay for any mill tickets there, though the free clog-making musuem was neat. note that at the time of writing this, zaanse schans requires a bulk ticket to enter the mills, whereas De Schoolmeester, being way out in the middle of nowhere, just takes 6 euros.

a video of the main shaft

for some reason, might not work in firefox, but feel free to download and take a look if it's not loading in your browser.

last updated: 2024-07-22 22:15:50