Netherlands Open Air Museum
We started the day by riding a few miles uphill—yes, uphill in the Netherlands! After so many days of flat cycling, even small hills stand out. Still nothing like back home, but they made for a good morning stretch.
We rode out to the Netherlands Open Air Museum (Openluchtmuseum), only a few miles away. At the museum, we parked and locked our bikes and traveled back in time. The museum is extraordinary—a living archive of Dutch rural and early industrial life. Historic buildings have been relocated here from all over the Netherlands—windmills, barns, farms, workshops—each one telling a different story.
Veluwe Paper Mill, Oil Press Windmill & Shipwright
Among the most memorable exhibits were the water-powered paper mill, quietly churning pulp into paper using ingenious hydropower; the massive oil press windmill where we watched linseed oil drip slowly from a hammer-driven wedge press; and a shipwright restoring a hundred-year-old boat using traditional tools and timber milled onsite. Each person we met brought these old technologies vividly to life.
Water vs. Wind
While walking among the windmills, waterwheels, and the old steam-powered dairy plant, it struck me just how massive and complex these machines are. Windmills especially—towering structures with giant sails—must have required enormous effort and constant upkeep. Wood expands and contracts, gears need tending, everything groans and creaks with age. And yet, the Dutch built thousands of them.
Why not just use mill ponds, like we did where I was raised? Watermills provide steady, reliable power—especially when fed by a stream or a well-designed pond. There’s a surprising amount of potential energy stored in a good mill pond, and even a small wheel can do a lot of work. But in the Netherlands, where hills are scarce and water drops scarcer, they didn’t have that option.
So the Dutch did what they always seem to do: they engineered brilliance.
To catch the shifting breeze, windmills were built with massive sails and a rotating top—mounted on a circular base with external gearing, allowing the whole structure to be turned to face the wind. The result? One of the most iconic and versatile machines in the world—used to grind grain, pump water, saw timber, and press oil.
Use what you’ve got.
Encounters & Stories
The old museum train clanked and creaked as it pulled up to the platform, its vintage railcars restored in perfect detail—every hinge and handle a whisper from the past. The conductor stood at the door in full uniform, as though he’d stepped out of a Dutch postcard from the 1930s.
While Ian stepped off to take photos, a Syrian family boarded—parents, children, relatives, all smiles and chatter. One of the women took the open seat beside Grace, not realizing it had been Ian’s. Strangely, the seat across from her friend remained empty. But she didn’t seem to notice.
Moments later, Ian returned and paused at the doorway. He looked at the empty seat, then at Grace, then back again. The woman’s family caught on before she did, shifting in their seats with quiet amusement. She finally noticed the silent standoff and began to move, a little flustered.
But Ian waved it off with a smile. “No, no,” he said. “It’s fine. I don’t even like her. She steals from me.”
A small ripple of laughter passed through the car.
Then, with perfect timing and a mischievous grin, he added, “She stole my heart.”
The car burst into warm laughter. Some of the Syrian men applauded and hooted from the back row. Even the locals cracked a smile.
Ian said shukran jazeelan in perfect Arabic. They were all surprised and quickly spoke to him in Arabic. But alas, aside from as-salamu alaikum or God be with you, that’s all he knows. And the kid didn’t speak English—Dutch was his second language.
The rest of the ride became a quiet kind of magic. Ian turned to the woman’s nine-year-old son and began showing him a series of magic tricks and hand coordination games. The young man picked up each trick almost instantly. Bright eyes, quick hands. Sharp kid. Easily one of the smartest Ian had ever taught.
Every time we hear the phrase “Syrian refugee,” we think of Steve Jobs—and we wonder what this boy will go on to create.
When the train rolled to a stop, the family stood to leave. The boy turned back one last time and waved with a cheerful grin. We waved back, already smiling.
Museum Staff & Kindness
The staff at the front desk kept an eye on our bikes the whole time we were inside. To thank them, we gave them a little cake we brought from Deventer. Their kindness was as warm as the weather.
Sweet Treats & Dutch Quirks
We grabbed lunch at the museum café and ordered poffertjes—mini Dutch pancakes dusted with powdered sugar. We tried to get the apple version, but they were out of fresh apples. Rather than use canned fruit, they simply didn’t serve them. Gotta love that commitment to freshness.
We also ordered lemonade, which arrived rose-colored and tasted like faint strawberry water. When we asked the waiter about it, he laughed and admitted it had never occurred to him that lemonade should actually taste like lemon. “Huh,” he said, thinking it over, “you’re right—lemon is in the name!”
It turns out that in the Netherlands, “limonade” refers to any fruit-flavored syrup mixed with water—often served to kids. If you want actual lemon-flavored lemonade, you have to ask for citroenlimonade.
Evening in Arnhem
We returned to the city hoping to climb St. John’s Church tower, but missed closing by a few minutes. We’ll try again in the morning before heading to Nijmegen (still practicing how to pronounce it—“NIM-eh-hen”?).
Dinner was light: fresh salads from Albert Heijn, which we’d discovered on a previous trip. We also picked up strawberries from a farm vending machine—sweet and juicy. The chocolate custard? Not a favorite.
We ended the night watching A Bridge Too Far, reflecting on everything we’d experienced that day.
Arnhem offered far more than we expected—history, humor, humanity, and heart. This day renewed our faith in people and left us smiling long after the sun went down.
Arnhem itself is steeped in history. During WWII, it was the site of intense fighting, particularly during Operation Market Garden, dramatized in the film A Bridge Too Far. That history is still palpable throughout the city.
Planned Route
Actual Route
Oil Press Windmill – A Winter’s Work and Ingenious Design
One of the most memorable exhibits was the oil press windmill, where flaxseed and rapeseed were ground into mash and then pressed to extract oil. Built by farmers as a way to earn extra income during the slow winter months—when they also had time on their hands—this windmill is a testament to Dutch ingenuity.
The gentleman working the mill showed us how flaxseeds (linseeds) were first crushed under the large round stones on the right, then the resulting mash was packed into a hammer press on the left. He switched the mill into press mode, and we watched as giant wooden posts lifted and dropped with rhythmic force onto a double-wedge mechanism. Moments later, a trickle of linseed oil began to stream into a small catch basin.
Linseed oil isn’t edible—it’s traditionally used in paint, wood preservation, as a lubricant for machinery, and in the manufacture of linoleum. (Linoleum, or linoleum in Dutch, combines “linum” (Latin for flax) and “oleum” (oil). It’s a natural floor covering made from solidified linseed oil, rosin, and other materials. This is actually where the product got its name.)
The same windmill could also be adapted to press rapeseed oil, which is edible and commonly used in cooking and baking due to its mild flavor and high smoke point.
The leftover “seedcake” from both processes was fed to livestock to boost the fat content in their milk. Interestingly, while horses could be used to power this type of press, they could only walk in circles for about two hours before becoming dizzy—and if not stopped, they might never recover. That’s why wind power became not only more efficient, but more humane.
As a final fun fact: flax (linseed) grows best in clay soil, while rapeseed thrives in sandy soil—making them both excellent rotational crops in different parts of the Netherlands.
Shipwright Workshop
Tracing Time in Timber
Inside a barn housing antique wagons and carriages, we met this brilliant gentleman whose job is to determine the age of structural wood. He practices dendrochronology—the science of studying tree rings to trace history. To do this, he built his own 18-inch hollow-core drill bit to take clean, precise samples from old beams. You can see several of these core samples laid out on the table to the right, each one labeled with the beam it came from.
By analyzing the growth rings in each sample, he can identify how much of a structure is original, when additions were made, and even when certain parts were repaired or replaced. He applies this work to historic buildings across the Netherlands, including churches, farmhouses, windmills, barns, warehouses, timber-framed civic buildings, and wooden canal-side houses.
Only four people in the country do this kind of work, and he’s the only one dedicated exclusively to historic buildings. When I joked that he should brand his initials into the wooden plugs used to seal the drill holes, he grinned and replied, “Already do.”
Steam-Powered Dairy Plant – Stoomzuivelfabriek Freia
This photo shows the butter churn inside Stoomzuivelfabriek Freia, a steam-powered dairy plant originally founded in 1879 in Veenwouden, Friesland. It was the first private Frisian cheese and butter factory, and in 1992, it was relocated to the Netherlands Open Air Museum to preserve its legacy.
The entire facility ran on steam: massive belts and pulleys stretched across the ceilings, all driven by a central boiler room. With this setup, they churned butter, pasteurized milk, and produced cheese on an industrial scale—decades ahead of their time.
To ensure farmers were paid fairly for the quality of their milk, the plant used the Gerber method. This involved adding sulfuric acid to dissolve proteins and solids, followed by spinning the mixture in a centrifuge to isolate and measure the fat content with precision.
Watermill-Powered Papermaking
This beautifully preserved workshop shows an early water-powered paper mill, where flowing water turned wooden gears and paddles to drive the pulping machinery. In this case, a large wooden wheel powered the vertical shaft above, which transferred motion to a set of pounding hammers—called stampers—used to crush linen rags into pulp.
Before wood pulp became the standard in the 19th century, paper in Europe was typically made from old textiles like cotton, flax, and hemp rags. Workers would soak the fabric, and the stampers would beat it into a fibrous slurry, which was then scooped, spread onto screens, and pressed into individual sheets.
This process was sustainable and highly innovative for its time, harnessing renewable energy to support literacy, communication, and the spread of knowledge—one handmade sheet at a time.
Watermill-Powered Papermaking
