By Hannah Carter-Moore, Universiteit van Amsterdam, the Netherlands

A throwback to an Autumnal day out in Amsterdam

I was looking back at my photos the other day and was reminded of the time I went with some friends to Zaanse Schans, a picturesque traditional Dutch town a short train ride from Amsterdam. The village looks like its straight out of a old-timey medieval video game, with traditional craft workshops dotted along lamp-lit streets. A personal favourite had to be the clog workshop, where we watched a someone machine-carve and then hand-finesse a pair of wooden clogs. The hot chocolate shop and cheese shop were also a hit with our stomachs as we filled them liberally with samples. The real pull of Zaanse Schans, though, is that it’s filled with these gorgeous giant windmills. There was a certain novelty about walking through a little Dutch windmill village with a cup of hot chocolate in my hand that brought me an embarrassing amount of joy. We then hung out with the goats at the goat farm and the free-roaming ducks before wandering back through to the station to get back to Amsterdam Centraal. 

Despite the sample scranning, we went to get more food from two Dutch must-trys: Febo and Winkel 43. If MacDonalds and a vending machine were to have a baby, you’d get Febo. While the food isn’t gourmet, sometimes you just need that Febo hit and the veggie croquet was calling my name. And because dessert is always necessary, and sweet treats are something that the Dutch are actually quite good at (stroopwaffel, poffertjes…), we rounded the day off with a trip to Winkel 43, i.e. apple pie heaven. I wasn’t an advocate for apple pie before coming to Amsterdam, but having apple pie at Winkel is what I can only describe as a spiritual experience. Tummies happy, we cycled back through the streets of Jordaan to bed. A pretty cute day to say the least.