Schermerhorn, Nederlands

Okay, okay, I really should write about Schermerhorn, Netherlands, after all, it is my homeland of sorts. However, I'm enjoying the hills and slight hint of fall in Heidelberg right now and being here is something to write home about, too.

Nonetheless, I'll write about Heidelberg when I can--I still need to let you know how great Amsterdam had been as well! Now with a cup of NesCafe cappuccino in hand, about my homeland.

So, Schermerhorn is a little village of about 1,500 people in Holland, the northwest part of the Netherlands. My brother and I learned that there once was a Lake Schermerhorn that the Dutch drained 300 or so years ago to use as farmland. Now the area is called Schermer (kind of a county name for us back home), and Schermerhorn is one of a few towns in the area. The Dutch used a handful of windmills to drain the lake into dikes and out to sea and if I remember correctly, it took about 3 years for the lake to be completely drained. Judging by the water I saw pumped at the windmill museum--it was one big lake.

Schermerhorn itself is a pretty lazy town, really consisting of only one main road, a church, two cafes, and dozens of canals. Check out the Google map of Schermerhorn to see what I mean. It sounds like it is a pretty wealthy town, judging by the English video we watched at the windmill museum, because the people in the area became wealthy form shipping various wares and food, including herring--ack!

Nonetheless, here's a photo of one of two ways of getting into town by car. (There are numerous ways to get into town by boat.)

I'm not sure what Schermerhorn residence do for work; they were everywhere in the middle of the day on a weekday.

And packed so tightly into this cafe, that my brother and I decided to leave before we got coffee. We think we might have walked in on some sort of town meeting or funeral luncheon of an old community member. Situations like this make it unfortunate that one doesn't speak the local language.

Ah, and canals. Oh, the canals!

How cool--and handy--to have a canal at the back of your backyard? At the very least, the neighbor kids wouldn't cut through your yard on the way to school and tromp on your rosebushes.

By the end of our time in Amsterdam, I was ready for more land, less water, and more elevation changes. The most elevation gained was climbing the 5 flights of stairs to our hostel every night. My brother and I rode across one of the Netherlands giant dikes and dams which just shows that the whole part of Holland (again, just the upper part of the Netherlands; Southern Netherlands is quite hilly, actually) and then some is naturally below sea level. In fact, Amsterdam used to be wetlands. (Yeppers, that's out the car window.)

The first houses were built on wooden stilts. Many of the old houses in downtown Amsterdam are built on top of tree trunks that were shoved vertically into the mud. Very strange, and it produces some pretty crooked houses.(Back in Amsterdam, anyway.)

And here are some windmill photos from our fantastic time at the windmill museum. It was pretty windy that day so the mill was cranking pretty fast.

 

I had a brief, yet exciting, video of looking out the third-floor window toward the arms of the windmill, but sadly, it won't load onto blogger. Oh, well.

More about Amsterdam and/or Heidelberg next. Have a good one!