Controlled Chaos

We left Toul just after 8 a.m. on Tuesday, August 19. We'd seen some indication of highway construction zones along our route, but happily, we were only briefly slowed a couple of times. The roads were in excellent condition and traffic was generally light except for the noticeable increase in trucks when we entered the Netherlands. Our biggest issue of the day was trying to figure out how Belgium's motorway rest areas were configured. Many were simply picnic areas with no other services, but once we found an online guide we were able to locate stops with more extensive services.

We were with our friends Carla and Ebe at their home in Heerhugowaart (about a 30–45-minute drive north of Amsterdam) by mid-afternoon. A restful afternoon and evening of good conversation, a delicious dinner, and an after-dinner stroll for ice cream (and an ATM stop!) prepared us for the next day's encounter with SAIL 2025 Amsterdam.

The first SAIL Amsterdam was held in 1975 to celebrate Amsterdam's 700th birthday. It was so successful that it was decided to hold the event every five years. The SAIL events bring together large sailing ships and a vast fleet of smaller historic boats. This year's SAIL helped celebrate Amsterdam's 750th birthday, 50 years of SAIL and, due to postponement of the event in 2020 due to COVID, it was the 10th anniversary edition of SAIL. 

SAIL Amsterdam 2025 was a 5-day event with a packed program of events centered around the port in Amsterdam. Some of the events were free and some, such as concerts, required the purchase of tickets. Not being so enamored of crowds, we were primarily interested in seeing the opening event of the festival, the traditional "Sail In" parade of the tall ships making their way from IJmuiden on the coast to the port of Amsterdam via the North Sea Canal. 

Ebe had no interest in joining the crowd of spectators for the Sail In, having seen it multiple times over the years, so Carla was our tour guide for the day. We took the train to the canal side town of Beverwijk and after a brisk 2+ mile walk we set up camp stools near the water with hundreds of our closest friends, and settled in.

When the sun was out it was more than comfortable; when it 
wasn't, the breeze was a bit cool.

This being the Netherlands, many of the spectators arrived
by bicycle. The organizers had also set up space in parking
lots for the bikes. How does one find their bike afterward
when there's no remote control to activate lights or sound?

We arrived somewhat after 9 a.m., and our first hour was spent watching a non-stop stream of boats making their way down the canal from the direction of Amsterdam toward IJmuiden. These were private boats of all shapes, sizes, and vintages that had to comply with a strict set of guidelines in order to participate in the parade. Water police and water rescue boats helped keep things organized.

Upper: looking "right" in the direction of IJmuiden (town not visible)
Lower: looking "left" in the direction of Amsterdam (several km
away and also not visible)

At 10 a.m. the first tall ships were scheduled to go through the sea lock at IJmuiden and we started seeing them from our position at about 10:45. The largest tall ships under sail had at least one tow boat tethered aft as a braking mechanism; a few of the ships not under sail were being towed by a 2nd boat tethered to the bow. We had thought that the tall ships would be moving through the canal on a central channel that had been cleared for them. In our wildest dreams we did not envision that the smaller boats we'd seen moving "down" the canal earlier would essentially be swarming the tall ships, filling in the available water between and around those ships. The SAIL website estimated that 10,000+ boats would be participating, and as we were seeing just a small part of the parade route, we wouldn't be at all surprised by that. It looked completely chaotic, and at times there were so many boats that it became hard to distinguish the tall ships from the other largish historic boats that were on the water. Yet, we saw no collisions, so it must have been a "controlled chaos." 

The swarm

A tall ship approaches under sail. It's still amazing that we saw no collisions.

A military ship departed the Beverwijk harbor and joined the parade.

Two of the dozens of tall ships.

Contributing to the party atmosphere were ballons and confetti, musicians in period dress on 
a classic boat, Romans trying to fix their "horse", and car marketing done in an unusual way.

We felt a bit concerned for the ducks and the lone swan caught up in the
madness, but they, too, managed to avoid any collisions.

After about an hour-and-a-half of parade, all of the tall ships seemed to have passed by, so we started back to the train station for our return to Heerhugowaart. The part of our walking route that was shared with bicycles was the most dangerous part of our day. Fortunately, like the boaters and the birds, we had a "crash free" return to Carla and Ebe's house, where we spent the remainder of the afternoon just relaxing before taking them out for a "thanks for hosting us" dinner that evening.

We left Heerhugowaard on Thursday morning, August 21. We would be staying that evening at a hotel just to the south of Schiphol Airport and to the east of the city of Haarlem. We wanted to see our Haarlem friends Joost and Yolanda before we headed out of the Netherlands, and because it was a workday for them, dinner in Haarlem seemed to be the best option. As we couldn't check into the hotel until at least 2 p.m., we decided to spend the early part of the day in a heritage park called Zaanse Schans, easily reachable on our drive between Heerhugowaard and Schiphol.

Zaanse Schans is in a neighborhood of Zaandam. (We'd visited Zaandam on a day trip by train in 2021, but Zaanse Schans was just too far from the center of Zaandam for us to have comfortably paid it a visit at that time.) The outdoor museum contains windmills and traditional houses designed to display what life was like in the 18th and 19th centuries in the Zaan district, the oldest industrial area in western Europe. In the 17th century the Zaan district became a center of shipbuilding. In its industrial heyday, over 600 active windmills were at work in the district. The current park contains 8 full-size windmills, most brought in from other parts of the district in order to preserve them, with the oldest dating to 1609. While there are a few residents in the neighborhood, most of the houses are given over to craft workshops, souvenir shops, and small cafes. 

We hadn't read much about Zaanse Schans before visiting, thereby failing to realize that it is a well-known tourist attraction that sees nearly 3 million visitors per year. It probably wasn't even close to being its busiest time of the year, but the number of people there was enough to cause us to shorten our stay to about an hour. Attractive, but commercialized. We were glad we came, but ultimately, prefer to see our windmills "in the wild."

An overview of windmill row from one perspective.

The windmills as seen from the water.

 

The idea for Zaanse Schans originated in 1947. The first mill arrived on
site in 1955 and the first house came a few years later. The museum was
opened by Queen Juliana in 1972.

The large number of people walking by the windmills is directly
proportional to the large number of tourist busses in the parking lot.

After retrieving our car, we drove to the center of Zaandam, parked, and found a cafe for lunch. For whatever reason, Zaandam seemed quieter this time than it was in 2021. As we were anxious to avoid driving in rush hour traffic, we left Zaandam soon after lunch and enjoyed a quiet afternoon in the hotel before driving to Haarlem for our dinner with Joost and Yolanda.

This is just a portion of a rather macabre art installation in a grassy area next to the hotel.
No one at the hotel could explain the meaning behind the "garden of heads". Perhaps they are
simply an object lesson to any customer who is thinking of leaving without paying.

It's always wonderful to see Joost and Yolanda, and they were
kind enough to treat us to a wonderful dinner at Restaurant
Parck near their home in Haarlem. We were sorry not to see their
daughters Suze and Rosa, but they are active teenagers and had
other things going on that evening.