★★★★★ 5.0
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Paintmill De Kat
This windmill is actually two different mills from the 1600s and 1700s smooshed together in 1960, and somehow it works perfectly. You're looking at the world's ONLY remaining working paint windmill, standing right here on Kalverringdijk since that famous mill mashup! The bottom half? That's the original 1646 oil mill called De Kat that burned down in 1782. The octagonal top section? That came from a completely different mill called De Duinjager, built around 1696 in another part of Zaandam. When urban development threatened De Duinjager, they literally sawed it off and plunked it down on De Kat's old storehouse foundation. Here's what blows my mind - Miller Kempenaar inside is still grinding pigments using Rembrandt's actual 17th-century recipes! Those same colors you see being made supply the Van Gogh Museum and Rembrandt House for their restoration work. The chalk he grinds comes all the way from France's Champagne region, and some of it ends up marking the white lines on Dutch soccer fields. With 130,000 visitors yearly, this Frankenstein windmill became the most popular mill in all of the Netherlands. Not bad for a recycled building project!
Did You Know?
- The Paintmill De Kat, located in the Zaanse Schans near Amsterdam, is the last remaining windmill-powered pigment mill in the world, still producing vibrant paint pigments using centuries-old methods—just as artisans did in Rembrandt’s time, making it a unique living museum of artisanal paint-making.
- In 1960, the mill was given a second life when the historic superstructure of another mill, 'De Duinjager', was relocated and placed atop De Kat’s original base—merging two mill histories into one and allowing De Kat to resume its traditional role after decades of dormancy.
- Families visiting De Kat can watch massive, 10-ton grinding stones—powered entirely by wind—crush colorful rocks like lapis lazuli and burnt sienna into fine pigments, and even buy authentic, hand-ground paints in the mill’s shop; the mill also offers breathtaking views of the Dutch countryside from its high scaffolding, making it both educational and scenic for all ages.