52.47° N · 4.82° E
Paint, oil and spice windmills still at work and green wooden houses beside the Zaan. A half-day trip by train from Amsterdam.
Part of Curious Places
What to do
Each plan says how long it takes, who it's for and whether you can book.
Visit · 2 h · Paint, oil, spice and saw mills still at work on the banks of the Zaan. Free to stroll; paid to go in.
Museum · 1 h 30 · The industrial history of the Zaan, with a rebuilt Verkade chocolate and biscuit factory. Included in the Zaanse Schans Ticket.
Boat · 25 min · An open boat for 12 people with a local guide, at the foot of the windmills. €12.50 adults, €8.50 children; April to September.
Itineraries
Days and weekends already planned out, with how to get between each stop and who to book with.
Plan the trip
Each choice narrows the next: the season shapes how best to travel, and how you travel decides where you stay and where you eat.
When to go
From April to September everything is open, including the boat on the river. In winter some windmills and workshops close or open for fewer hours. Go early or late: at midday the coaches arrive.
How you travel
Choose how you're travelling and we'll tell you where to stay, how to get around, where to eat and which services you'll need. We only show the ways of travelling that make sense here.
The Zaanse Schans has no airport of its own and does not need one: you fly to Amsterdam Schiphol, with direct flights from Madrid, Barcelona and many other Spanish cities, and from Amsterdam Centraal the train to Zaandijk Zaanse Schans takes about 17 minutes. The normal thing is to sleep in Amsterdam and come for the morning.
The easiest day trip from Amsterdam without a car: a direct train of about 17 minutes, a fifteen-minute walk and the whole site on foot. Parking costs €15 and fills up; the train wins. The budget per person per day includes sleeping in the area, food and entry to windmills and museums with the Zaanse Schans Ticket.
Who you're with
A trip with a toddler is not the same as one with a teenager. Pick yours to see what works and what to bear in mind.
It is one of the day trips that works best with children: close, flat, outdoors and with workshops where you can watch cheese or clogs being made. Half a day is enough, and the Zaanse Schans Ticket costs €20 for ages 4 to 17.
With children up to six, stay at ground level: the workshops, the museum bakery, the boat and the museum with the biscuit factory entertain them more than climbing a windmill. Everything is a few minutes away and you can use a pushchair on the main paths.
So that it is not just a photo of windmills, give them the bike: the e-bike route from Amsterdam along dykes and polders turns the trip into an adventure day. And the De Kat paint mill, with its machinery running, surprises them.
Where to stay
We show you what suits the way you travel.Change how you travel
Why we like it: A four-star hotel beside Zaandam station, with a façade of almost seventy stacked green Zaan houses, a swimming pool and a restaurant.
Why we like it: The Kalverringdijk restaurant rents rooms in its merchant's house of 1717: sleep on the site itself, with the windmills beside you.
Services for this trip
Where to eat
From set lunch menus to Michelin stars. We mark the price level and what to order at each place.
What to order: an apple and bacon pannenkoek; if you have the Zaanse Schans Ticket, show it for the 10% discount.
What to order: the midday meal on the river terrace, looking at the windmills.
Map
The places to stay and services on the map are the ones for the way you travel. Turn on the layers you want and tap a point to see its details.
Nearby
The closest places, whichever country they are in.
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Tips
At midday in season, the dyke fills up with groups.
That is the train station. "Zaandam Zaanse Schans" is a bus stop.
Many places on the site, including the toilets, only accept card payment.
The official website tells you which windmills and workshops are open each day.
The coach tours that combine the Zaanse Schans, Volendam and Marken in one morning. They arrive at peak time and spend half an hour at each place; by train it takes the same time and you choose your moment.
The Zaanse Schans is the day trip from Amsterdam that most people make, and it makes sense: in under half an hour you go from the canals to a row of windmills still at work on the banks of the river Zaan, with green-painted wooden houses, drawbridges and workshops. It is not a real village or a theme park: it is a district of Zaandam where, from 1961, windmills, houses and warehouses were brought from all over the region to save them.
Because the Zaan was the first industrial zone in western Europe. In the 17th and 18th centuries it had some six hundred windmills sawing timber for the shipyards, pressing oil and grinding spices, cocoa, mustard and pigments. Those at the Zaanse Schans are survivors of that era: De Kat, from 1664, is the last paint mill in the world still in production, and the miller shows you how he grinds the pigments that restorers buy from all over the world. The Zaans Museum, at the entrance, tells the story with a reconstructed chocolate and biscuit factory.
By train. From Amsterdam Centraal a direct train runs to Zaandijk Zaanse Schans station in about 17 minutes; from there it is fifteen minutes on foot across the bridge over the Zaan, with the windmills ahead of you. Do not get off at Zaandam: the "Zaandam Zaanse Schans" stop is a bus stop. You pay by tapping a contactless card when you enter and leave.
By car, the official car park is at Schansend 7 and costs €15 per visit; it has limited spaces and fills up in spring. If you like cycling, MacBike runs a guided e-bike tour from Amsterdam along dykes and polders.
Entering the site and walking along the dyke is free. What you pay for are the windmills and the museums: the Zaanse Schans Ticket (€29.50 adults, €20 ages 4 to 17) includes the Zaans Museum and the Verkade Experience, the Time Museum, the Windmill Museum, the weaver's house, the cooperage, two windmills of your choice from those open that day, a digital audio guide and 10% off at the De Kraai restaurant. Each windmill also sells its own single ticket. The cheese dairy, the clog workshop and the museum bakery are free. Toilets cost €1 and can only be paid for by card.
Half a day. Arrive before 10:00, when the first windmills open and the coaches have not yet arrived; walk along the Kalverringdijk and its windmills, go up one, call in at the cheese dairy and the clog workshop and, from April to September, take a 25-minute trip on the Windmillhopper boat. Have lunch at De Kraai and return to Amsterdam in the afternoon, or combine it with Volendam and Marken if you are driving.
From April to September everything is open, including the boat and the pedestrian ferry that crosses to Zaandijk. In winter some windmills and workshops close or cut their hours, but there are far fewer people; check the daily calendar on the official website before you go. If there is little wind, some windmills may be standing still.
Questions
By train from Amsterdam Centraal to Zaandijk Zaanse Schans, about 17 minutes, then a fifteen-minute walk.
Walking around the site is. The windmills and museums are paid for, individually or with the €29.50 Zaanse Schans Ticket.
Half a day is enough for two windmills, the cheese dairy, the museum and the boat.
Yes, on a lead, around the site. They are not allowed in the museums, and in each windmill or shop it depends on the place.
Yes, but some windmills and workshops close or open for fewer hours. The Windmillhopper boat only runs from April to September.
Geocaliahttps://www.geocalia.com/en/the-netherlands/zaanse-schans
