The day that I left Doetinchem we drove around to see a few Holland specific sites, namely windmills and the traditional shoemaking method that is for me really associated with The Netherlands.
You can spot many windmills when driving around the Dutch countryside. The windmills serve a few purposes, in current day they are mostly used to grind grains into power for the making of bread and other foodstuffs. In older times they were used to pump quite a bit of water out of the land back into the sea. The Dutch 'reclaimed' much land for the use of agriculture and living space in this method. They then built many dikes and dams to keep that water out.
The first stop was a windmill about 30km from Doetinchem.
Tools used to sharpen the mill.
The wind moves the sails outside which spins this great cog that then spins the gears which mash up all of the harvested grains that are fed inside.
Dude doesn't look that happy but he was actually pretty jovial.
Where the mashed up grain comes out.
This was actually a windmill in a different location.
After the windmill I wanted to check out the methods of Dutch klompen - or in English its commonly referred to as clogs. We went a bit farther away from Doetinchem and came across this guy who's family has been making these shoes for hundreds of years. They are really practical for use in farming and working in the fields. They keep your feet elevated and dry, off of the mud and watery ground.
This guy is fitting a strap to the shoe - there are two styles. One that sort of covers the whole foot and this one which is a bit easier to wear and not as tight on the foot. The thing about the shoes is that they won't ever really break in - as their made of completely of wood.
The process begins here literally with a block of wood.
The wood is inserted on a series of machining devices which carve out parts. The final step is to size the shoes. The machine here fits a sample shoe into the vice and the two shoes on the outside match the size of the inside.
Here are some finished samples.