Kinderdijk (Kinder - dike) and the Windmills

Kinderdijk is the location of a UNESCO World Heritage site with its beautiful windmills dating to the 1730s.  Think about that!  These windmills were operating to pump water from high marshy ground to low ground in the nearby river since before the American Revolution!


When I think of "mills", in general, my first thought is of milling of grain as we see in America.  Here, though, the mills were built to pump water that rose daily out of the soggy, peat-based ground into the nearby river when it was at low tide.  To do this, a "millwright" and his family called these places home and accomplished their task by harnessing wind power .


Around since the first century, windmills were invented in Persia but perfected by the Dutch who needed them with 1/3 of their country below sea-level (100% in the area of Amsterdam).  They didn't catch on in Europe, thought, until the 17th. century.  Amazingly, the head of the windmill can turn 360 degrees to catch the wind in just the right fashion.  They allowed drainage of flat, marshy lands so that farmers could grow fruit, vegetables, and tulips.


Steam power, first, and now electric power has replaced the windmills.  At one point, there were more than 150 of them in Holland but the total is down to 28 now, with 19 of them located here in the Kinderijk area.  Of course it was drizzling and cold while we visited - remind me not to go on vacation in Europe in April again, please.  Still, unlike Don Quixote we decided not to tilt at the windmills, mistaking them for giants.  Rather, we saw them for what they were - quiet but majestic relics of days gone by.

We sail early today for Hoorn, our next-to-last stop before Amsterdam.  More tomorrow on its wonders, and hoping that all is well in the USA.  I saw, thanks to the internet, that the Buckeyes had 3 players chosen in the first round of the NFL draft.  And, how did we not win the national championship?

You can take the boy away from home, but you can't take home out of the boy. So for now . . . 



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