6.19 SUNDAY-THE KINDERDIJK WINDMILLS

OR

Now we know what all the fuss was about… Water. 

We traversed several locks in the night on the way to Kinderdijk and arrived early in the morning. This is a UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE and managed by a foundation of volunteers.

For each shore excursion we will take, both included and optional, we are separated in 4-6 groups and each guide has a paddle with the group number {47A-B-C-D, etc.] to make it easy to follow the right guide.

Everyone on board has a personal wifi receiver called a QuietVox to use on the guided tours so everyone can hear the running commentary of the guide without having to stand next to them all the time.  It allows you to stop for pictures and still follow the action, while racing to catch up to the group, as Chucky must do often.

Sometimes you may get to close to another group and your receiver would latch on to the wrong guide and you would have to turn it off and get close to your guide and turn it back on until it found the signal.  There was a lot of Verizon Commercial Moments of “Can You Hear Me Now” at the beginning of each tour.

After dis-embarking to meet our volunteer guides on the top of the dike for a slow walk and briefing on the reason for and use of the windmills that grace every other

postcard from Holland.  Being in the Rhine Delta region much of the area is below sea level and the windmills were developed to move the water from canal to canal to control the water level in the various boggy areas called polders .

More details can be found at this link https://www.kinderdijk.com than I can describe here.

We followed one dike down to cross over to visit an operating windmill. It was utterly fascinating to see the size and scope of the system of gears, pulleys etc. mostly made of wood, all of which had to be assembled in place before the structure could be built around it and 

then the revolving cap that would direct the blades into the wind was added.  The millers who maintain the operation of each windmill used to live in the windmill but those that operate them now live in a separate building leaving the original quarters set as a museum.

Modern Pumping stations have taken over the function of moving the water as needed while the 19 windmills of Kinderdijk remain functional, but mostly for show.

As I mentioned, our guide was a volunteer from the foundation that maintains the Windmills and a descendent of original millers.  Her depth of knowledge and commentary was very informative and a visit to the repair/workshop gave us great insight in to what it took to maintain these massive engineering marvels, including how the sails were parked to indicate various events and/or messages about the residents of a particular mill.

Back onboard, time for lunch and we cast off to do a little day sailing as we parked ourselves on the upper deck to enjoy the reason we took this cruise, the view of the countryside, the river and marvel at how high the river was… which would soon come to affect significant parts of the cruise and excursions.

We’re meeting a variety of folks from all over, Stan and Nancy from Charlotte, Rick and Carol from Dallas, Jeff and Suzanne from Detroit.  All first time river cruisers.  

And out come the cameras.   It’s a great day and plenty of photo ops, not to mention the lively conversation on “back Home” family, grand-kids, the lousy weather in Amsterdam, and a partridge in..,[damn bird’s back!] as well as the days tour and their favorite staff and the boat etc…etc…etc. [no more birds though] except the ones Dragon Chic was shooting with her camera.

The rest of the day was fairly unremarkable as was lunch and dinner. They do a nice enough job just nothing special.  However, the service staff are incredible.  We do our best to sit in Cherie’s station a delightful Philipina whose smile is worth the price of admission.

Then there is IRO “The Hero” the Bar Chef who is One Wild and Crazy Guy and keeps us in stitches, and as all good bartenders do, he remembers Chucky’s Scotch neat with a side of soda [no ice] every time he walks into the lounge.  This could turn into a VERY wet trip, and we don’t mean rainy.

After dinner our table of 6 managed to find ourselves in the lounge for Music Trivia, seriously… [Chucky Don’t Play That] but apparently his random answers fed to our team won us a bottle of champagne.

It turned into a Very late and Very Wet night of partying with several couples and single ladies who were having Waaaayyyyy too much fun and soon, Chucky needed to crash, the next day’s tour would start early.

Next stop Köln, more popularly known as Cologne and the Magnificent Cathedral of Cologne.

Ciao Voor Nu,

Uncle Chuck & The Delighted she’s Cruisin’ the Rhine

Dragon Lady