Zaanse Schans, a popular outdoor ‘living museum’ near Amsterdam featuring a collection of historic windmills and other historic buildings will no longer be free, if the local council goes ahead with a plan to charge for admission to the windmill collection.
The village is a neighborhood in the town of Zaandam, to which historic buildings and mills from around the area have been moved to join a number of originals. Small museums in some of the houses demonstrate a variety of crafts, but the big attraction, drawing over 2.6 million visitors, is the collection of eight mills, the oldest dating to the 16th century.
Over-tourism and maintenance costs are being cited by officials. “The Zaanse Schans was never envisaged to be the public draw it is now,” and has become a “national symbol for over-tourism,” council official Wessel Breunesse told the newspaper Parool… This heritage site is under considerable pressure and there is no budget for investing in it,” he said. “We want to realize this without asking the Zaanse taxpayer to cough up.”
If the plan is approved, council members hope, the number of visitors would drop to about 1.8 million, with a €17.50 charge to visit the windmills.
Image: Ryan R Zhao/Wikimedia Commons
