Shoe Factory Tour- Holland

On a very cold day, Linda, Debbie, Lauren, and I got on a train into Holland to see the famous Klopenmuseum in Zaanse Schaan. This museum is better known as the wood clogs museum and explained how the shoes were made. In this museum there are more than 2,200 pairs of different clogs and other footwear with wooden soles, from 43 countries! Also this clog collection is known as the most diverse collection in the world.

Although everyone knows what wooden shoes are, the practice of clog wearing has become extinct. There used to be a lot of clog makers, who all had their own models, colors, and decorations. The diversity in clogs now is used to show the cultural heritage of the people who wore them. The wooden shoes museum was opened in 1990 to make the art of wooden shoes known.

Walking through the museum you learn each step in how a clog is made. First, the wood has to be collected. The shoemaker already knows the size shoes he is going to make because that determines how he will saw the tree trunk into logs. The shape of the trunk (oval, round) will determine the type of wooden shoes the maker is able to create: high, low, large, or small. Next the shoemaker will cleave or split the log. Two chisels are used because cleaving is done on an angle. Wooden shoes made from cleaving are thinner and lighter. After that the shoemaker compares the blocks to pick, which will be made into his shoes. The shoemaker looks for both of the blocks need to be made of the same type of wood, which side of the tree the blocks came from, and what side the bark is on. All these factors determine how the shoes will shrink in later steps. The fourth step in the process is trimming the blocks of wood. The shoemaker uses a chopping axe and the adze to trim a pair of blocks. This step removes the bark from the tree and starts to make the wood look more like a shoe. The next step is cutting where the blocks are shaped into wooden shoes. The shoemaker first shapes the heel, then the beak because the heel determines how high the shoe is. At the end of this process we have two blocks in the shape of the shoe.

After that, the shoemaker must bore out or parbuckle the shoes. Boring is the hardest part of making a wooden shoe. How well the shoe fits determines how good a shoemaker is. Every shoemaker has their own model on how they fit the shoe such as: high or low, round or pointed nose, straight or curled nose. The shoemaker must continue to adjust the size, which is the next step. This is done with a different drill called the chasing drill. This drill is used to create enough space for the rest of the foot to fit comfortably in the shoe. The last step is scraping the wooden shoes, which is when they smooth out the outside surfaces of the shoe. The heel is the correct size, the fitting is good, and now they are just cleaning up the shoe. Then these shoes can be painted and decorated based on the region where they are made.

I got to see a shoemaker do all of these steps right in the museum. It was incredible how a piece of wood turned into one of these beautiful shoes. In the end of the museum they had wooden shoes you could buy. I wish I could have brought one back to show my family and explain the amount of work it took the make that shoe. I definitely benefitted and learned a lot from this tour.

 

Flower Market- Amsterdam

My favorite market we visited was the Bloemenmarkt in Amsterdam. Since the middle of the 19^th century, this city of canals has boasted floating flower market. This flower market is the most famous in Holland. I thought this was a weird place for a flower market, but there is actually a reason it is there. In 1862, when it was first established, the plants and flowers sold were brought to Amsterdam on barges via canal from various places. It was easier to organize the market on the water than transport all the plants to land. Today, the fresh flowers are still brought in every day, but now they are delivered by the land rather than on canals. The market stalls still rest on barges in the canal, but they are permanently anchored there.

This market is open all year long, which is great because visitors and locals can take advantage of all the different colorful plants no matter what the season. Of course my favorite were the Dutch tulips, which are obviously a popular item. At Christmas time the barges become covered with evergreens of every shape, size and hues. I would love to go for Christmas and see all the beautiful Christmas trees! Plants are imported from other places and brought to the market, so it is not unusual to find tropical and nonnative plants at these barges. I found a great selection of Dutch souvenirs onboard the barges.

There are 15 stalls and honestly, I know nothing about flowers so they all looked similar to me. The climate is mild in Amsterdam, which makes for a good selection of flowers. I found out that this market is mostly for locals, even though it is a popular tourist destination. The market was extremely busy, especially for October when I went. I heard Christmas time is the most crowded time to go to the flower market. Since the market is mostly local businesses, the prices were much more reasonable than the Bellinzona market and I really wish I had bought some tulip bulbs to plant in my own garden when I came home. Also, since there are many vendors, if one shops price is too high you can go to the next stall. I could have gotten several tulip bulbs for one euro. What was very helpful was the vendors mark the packages of flowers that are allowed into the US. Sometimes if you can’t bring them through security, the shopkeeper could send the bulbs to your home for you.

The weirdest thing I saw in the market was Cannabis Starter kit. They are a few cannabis seeds and soil. They sell between 3 to 6 euros. The low price makes it obvious that this is worthless and there would be no way to get it home, regardless of where you lived. Buying marijuana seeds in Amsterdam is legal, but the buyer risks smuggling them back home and that is not worth the price. Overall, the market was extraordinary and so beautiful! I could have spent all day smelling the beautiful flowers and seeing all the bright colors.

Heineken Experience- Amsterdam

One of my favorite brewery tours I went on was the “Heineken Experience” in Amsterdam. This was not only a tour, but also a history and chemistry lesson on beer. I thought it was extremely interesting and the two free beers were just a bonus! The Heineken factory was established in Amsterdam in 1864 and today is one of the largest beer producers in the world. Heineken has always been a family company; Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken is one of the biggest stockholders and her husband Michel is on the company board. The brewery was renamed the Heineken Experience after adding some amusement park attractions to the exhibit. In 1988 Heineken closed the brewery and opened a tour experience for the fans of its beer. At first, it was a small admission charge to get in and you could drink as much as you wanted. After 2008, the tickets were more expensive and this factory became a tourist attraction.

The factory itself still has some of the original buildings and authentic interiors. When you first walk in you can see all old advertisement photos, pictures of the old factory, and family portraits. I really enjoyed the old photographs and medals that the Heineken family received. Also, there are all the old cans and bottles that were used for special events and in different years.

After seeing all the old history of the factory, I learned the major ingredients in their beer.  Heineken only uses four ingredients: barley, hops, water, and yeast. Barley is the major ingredient used in brewing beer, to use the barely for brewing it must be malted. Malting makes the starch and protein available for brewing. That starch is converting into sugar, which will produce alcohol during fermentation. We were offered barley water to taste what malted barley tastes like. It was very sweet but I would not recommend drinking it. The next ingredient is hops, which gives the flavor to the beer. It is the bitterness you taste at the end of sipping your beer. When smelling the hops, I smelled something equivalent to a wet dog, quite revolting! Beer contains 95% water and is important in giving beer its flavor. The last main ingredient is yeast. Yeast is used to convert malt sugars into alcohol during fermentation. In 1886, Dr. Elion discovered the famous Heineken A-yeast, which is a strain of yeast still used only by Heineken and is also a secret.

Once we observed and understood all the ingredients, we moved into a room with big tanks to understand how the beer is brewed. First, the barley is malted, ground, mixed with water and then heated. This converts the starch in the malted barley into sugars. They get rid of the solids in the mixture and what is left is “wort.” Then the hops are added to the brewers, which give the bitter taste. This mixture is then cooled down, moved into fermentation tanks, and the yeast is added. The beer will remain there for several days. After, it is cooled and put in storage cellars for post-fermentation. The final step is filtration, which then puts the beer into bottles, cans, or kegs. I found this process very interesting and it was cool to see the beer at every step of the process.

Cinque Terre and Pisa

We arrived to Cinque Terre around 4 by train and had to get on a bus to get to our hostel. As the bus winded all the way up the mountain we could see the breath taking views of cinque terre and knew we had chosen an amazing place to visit. We checked into our hostel and they have a free shuttle that takes you down the mountain to one of the 5 cities called Riomaggiore. We decided to explore the town that night and grab dinner because the only non reserved shuttle dropped us off at 6pm and picked us up at 9. When we got down to the town everything was so colorful. All the buildings and people were lit up. There was resturants upon restaurants and lots of shopping. Also, everyone spoke English because tourism had hit this place hard. (Thanks Rick Steve's) we decided on a bar that served pizza and was famous for its giant mojito bucket. It was a fun place with great music and we really enjoyed the mojito. As we were leaving we met some Australian guys who were staying in our hostel and had a drink with them. It was interesting to hear things from other countries perspectives especially how they view Americans. It makes me more aware and to be less ignorant when in different countries. 

The next morning we got up early to conquer all of cinque terre. We started in the same city as last night to grab breakfast. everyone in the place was American, Canadian, or British so the whole room was filled with English. To top it off we even saw a guy with a Virginia tech hat on!! After breakfast we headed to the farthest city on our list Monterosso. The train ended up being an hour late so we had a bit of a slow start. This city was known for its beaches because it had sand not just rocks like the other cities. We explored the beach and Debbie even went in for a swim! Many people were trying out the ocean even though the weather was not too favorable for swimming. After that we stopped at a nice cafe for lunch to try cinque Terres famous pesto. It was delicious but so much food! I have never had pesto so I was spoiled by having it in the city known for pesto. 

After that we decided to do the hike to Vernazza. It was the only hike trail open. We assumed it was just going to be long and far around the cliffs. Wow were we wrong. It was an intense hike! And to top it off we weren't even dressed to hike. I was in jeans, a cardigan, and wearing my diamond hoops. Meanwhile, people are in full hiking gear with walking sticks. The first 45 minutes was straight uphill that my legs were shaking when we finally reached the top. It was extremely hard but I was so proud of myself when we got to the end and got to see the most amazing views of cinque terre. After we got to the next city it began to pour and the hiking trail behind us got closed. We rewarded our hike with some refreshing mint gelato and tried to stay dry.  







Next we went to Corniglia. It was a beautiful city but you had a lot of stairs to walk up to see anything. Because of the rain not a lot of people were out but it was still cool to see all the beautiful scenery. By the time we got back to the train it was dark and we only had 2 hours until the bus was picking us up so we headed back to our original city. We had dinner in a bar (hamburger yum!) and watched the inter vs Roma game. It was great to watch the game with all the townies and feel apart of the culture. 

The last day we took a day trip to pisa to see the leaning tower of pisa. To get there we literally had to walk through the slums and it was very scary. But once there every tourist in sight was taking a picture with their hands holding up the tower. It was fun to get a picture and was a great way to end our fabulous weekend. Overall, it was nice to see such an amazing place and I look forward to going back to cinque terre in a less rainier season.



XOXO RIVA DIVA