Schiedam Historical Tour

Countryside Tours

Windmill "The Freedom", Schiedam
Eur 399 (1-2 pers.)
Eur 449 (3-4 pers.)
Eur 499 (5-6 pers.)
    (excl. admissions)
Everywhere in Schiedam you can find warehouses. Since there was a lot of brewery of jenever going on, a lot of ingredients needed to be stored.

The 2 warehouses on the picture on the right have the names of 2 dutch provinces on their front, Zeeland (see picture below) and Gelderland.

At the western edge of Schiedam’s old center, lined up along the former outer canal, stand the world’s five tallest windmills.

Their location explains their height. They were built between 1770-1810 and being used for the grinding of grain needed for the distillation of gin, then Schiedam’s main industry.

To catch as much wind as possible, they were made to stand high above the city, which came to lie at their feet.
This made them the highest windmills in the world.

The five windmills ( a remainder of original twenty mills) grinded grin for distilleries that made the famous jenever of Schiedam, where more gin was produced than in any other city in the world.

Schiedam can no longer make that claim, but two of the five remaining windmills do still grind grain for the jenever industry.

Three of the five can be visited to see the interior: one houses a shop, one a museum and the third a restaurant.
See the five tallest windmills of the world!
Since Schiedam is THE jenever city in the Netherlands, it is an absolute must to visit the jenever museum when you're there.

You can learn about the history of jenever, how it is brewed and of course you can taste some in the bar which is the final part of your museum tour...

It also has a very nice and sometimes funny collection of miniature jenever bottles. Very amusing

It's open Tuesdays till Saturdays from 12-17h.
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