Day Two - Kinderdijk

When my head hit the pillow last night, I was asleep before I pulled the covers over me!!  The rocking of the ship kept my asleep throughout the night and when I awoke, we were in Kinderdijk with windmills outside the windows.

We attended a morning lecture on the history of the windmills in Kinderdijk and the rest of the Netherlands.  The purpose of the windmills is to pump water from the marshy land into the North Sea because nearly one third of the country is 20 feet or more below sea level!!  The area is called a polder and it contains many modifications to the land that allows for people to inhabit live in build so far below sea level without being inside of the sea.  The canals redirect the water to holding lakes and through the mills to be pumped out of the land.  Many of the more than 30 miles of canals in this area were originally dug out by hand in 1366 AD and this system is still used today in connection with water pumping stations.  The windmills that we visited are still in use, but they are not required to the maintenance of the water levels.

The windmills contains a wheel beneath the building that is similar to a wheel on a water mill that scoops up the water to move it to the holding tanks.  We were able to enter one windmill that is still functioning.  William climbed to the upper levels, but the stairs were more like a latter and I thought that it was too soon in the trip to fall and hurt myself.  (Don't worry - I do have a voodoo doll with me!!)

The windmills at Kinderdijk are a UNESCO site, so all repairs to the buildings must be done with materials that could and were used by the mill workers when they were first built.  Eight of the stone windmills on one side of the canal were built in one year in 1738 AD and eight wooden mills were built in 1740 AD.  Those built of stone were built in an area that was able to collect higher taxes and could afford the building materials.  The only down side was that the stones were so heavy that even while building them the mills would begin to shrink and tilt.  (The land is sinking with the removal of the water from the marshy areas throughout the country which posing an additional problem with water removal.)  Those built of wood did not sink, but they were in danger of fire.  With the pieces of the mill made of wood and rope, parts can rub and cause the fires from friction.  This was especially true when the breaks were applied to stop the rotation of the sails.

We have set sail this afternoon and we should wake in Cologne. :)  I hear they have a chocolate museum . . . I know where I will be going!! :)