Welcome to the Netherlands

- June 03, 2025

Yesterday we had a history lesson about water management in the Netherlands. We docked for a few hours at Kinderdijt. This is a small town of maybe 50 houses. It is famous for its 19 working water windmills. 18 are 300 years old and one of them is 400 years old. They are no longer pumping water but are maintained. Families live in these things and are required to operate them for half a day each week. They are responsible for their maintenance. One is kept open to the public as a museum.

It was fascinating to climb to the top where you could view all the gears that are made of wood spinning. The blades are 40 feet long. At their apex, they are travelling at 75 mph. And I have to stress, these things are 300 years old! In their day they were capable of pumping 16,000 gallons an hour. Their replacement in the 19th century, steam and then diesel pumps could move 80,000 gallons an hour. The electric ones that are now in use can pump over a million gallons an hour. I would say that is progress.

Almost 50 % of the Netherlands is below sea level. Trying to keep the North Sea at bay has been going on since about 1000AD. Forever, they have trusted dikes to keep the North Sea at bay. After a major breech in the early 1950's that killed thousands of people and flooded half the country, the government decided to build a sea wall. By doing so they have turned part of the North Sea into an inland lake. At first it was salt water but eventually it became a fresh water lake. And as only the Dutch can do, they began to drain the lake for more land. With a population of 18 million and growing they need space. About 15 years ago they created a new province on land that was formerly part of the sea. We cannot imagine how much money will have been spent over the years fighting the sea. I guess it is a good thing that the Netherlands is one of the most prosperous countries in the EU. We have been told that the economy here is booming!

This morning we disembarked from our boat. Our luggage was placed outside of our room by 7:30 and we were escorted to our bus at 8:30 for our ride to our hotel. Our hotel is on the waterfront...but you know, half of Amsterdam could make that claim. There are as many canals as there are streets.

This morning we took a 2 hour guided walking tour of the old city. It was nice to get our bearings for our visit to The Anne Frank Museum and the Van Gogh Museum tomorrow. Our guide left us to our own devices in the city square where the Royal Residence is. No royals live here. Their King and Queen who are purely ceremonial, reside in the Hague.

We hooked up with our new friends from Michigan and Chicago and found a 'locals' place to have a beer. It was outside of the really touristy area of the city. We then found another out of the way place to have some lunch before returning to our hotel. We are not sure how many steps we took today but we are pretty sure that it is more than any other day on this adventure. That is not a bad thing. For 15 days we have been eating 3 meals a day (which we never do), 2 of those meals have been 3 courses (which we never have), and we will not even talk about all of our activities in the lounge in the evenings!