The nice thing about how late the sun comes up this time of year is we have been able to watch the sunrise everyday. Today, we watched the sunrise over the Kinderdijk Windmills in the Netherlands.
It was great lighting to show off our pretty home.
We were well rested and ready to learn.
Kinderdijk is a UNESCO world heritage site. It is an amazing example of engineering and so fascinating that most of it was built starting in the 1400’s. It was all because the Netherlands is pretty much all under sea level and they had to figure out a way to have a functional love/hate relationship with water. This website describes it way better than I can: Kinderdijk, I liked this quote: “We treat our water with respect and common sense, because we can’t do without it!”
The windmills were engineered to move water from a high water area to a low water area at a rate I wish I could remember but was very impressive.
The millers and their families live inside the windmill. There is one family that is 10th generation millers and the son says he wants to be a miller too. There is even a family that the miller died and his wife became a miller and now her daughter is going to take up milling as well.
This is a view from inside one of the windmills. The inside had a bunch of scary staircases that showed the engineering from inside and all the parts that had to be kept in working order.
It had amazing views from every lookout
I snagged a picture of the sketch that highlights the engineering inside.
After the windmill tour, we had to race back to the boat because they were taking off at 1030 sharp. They were not kidding, they pulled the ramp at 1030 exactly. We made it back for the mandatory safety drill and a glorious lunch. Check out our view.
Our lunch view gave us access to all the action. We made a random stop at a park to pick up some passengers that missed the boat from Amsterdam. The captain slid the boat up real close to the park dock and they loaded them on. Later on at cocktail hour, we sat next to the famous couple. I embraced my inner Mike Simmons and started a conversation with the celebrities. They were traveling with a group of 8 and they all had missed their connection to Amsterdam. The airlines were able to get 6 of them on a flight that got them here in time, they volunteered to stay back and catch up later. Now, Sylvia and Juan are famous and heroes...
More views from lunch
We enjoyed another cocktail hour with bubbly and hors d'oeuvres for the Captain’s toast.
Tomorrow, on to Cologne and the world famous Christmas Market.
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