Kinderdijk, Netherlands
June 04, 2024
Last night late the ship left Cologne and I was up and took a few night time pictures of the city. I liked the picture of the Cologne Cathedral as we passed under one of the bridges.
This morning was spent sailing up the Rhine and into the canals leading to Kinderdijk. Kinderdijk is a UNESCO world heritage site where they have preserved the the original windmills for which Netherlands is famous. These windmills were built in 1738 and pumped the water from approximately 120,000 acres, Each of the 16 windmills produced approximately 18 horsepower so this was a huge step up from the hand bailing of the water. They were replaced up a steam driven pumping system and then an electric system in 1924 and finally with a modern Archimedes' Screw pump.
The tour started from the ship and we walked across a bunch of board walks to the site while our guide explained how the system worked. The windmills lifted the walked from drainage canals into a secondary canal which had sluice gates on the main canal and when the tide went out the gates were opened and the water flowed out.
Once we reached the first windmill which is now a museum were went in to see the inner workings. The windmills were operated by a miller who lived in the windmill with his family. He was responsible for operating and maintaining the machinery. There wasn't much room in the windmill and all of the families were quite large so it must have been cozy.
The name Kinderdijk means child's dike and comes from a story that there was a major flood and every one was gathered on top of the dike and then a woman saw a cradle floating by with a cat balanced on top. She wadded into the water to rescue the cat and found a baby in the cradle.
Tomorrow we depart the ship and head home. This as really been quite the adventure but it is time to get home.
Terry
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