Windmills and Tulips (Part 1)

The day was about to arrive. The reason that I had put this trip together six months before to celebrate my retirement. The tulips come but once a year (albeit for about a month or so) and I wanted to see them in all their glory in the place of their greatest fame.

But first we had to get there. The overnight river transfer involved a number of locks and passing other travelers, like us, and other windmills, unlike those we would see in the morning. As I watched the riverside slide by at the pace of our civilized travel I enjoyed the setting sun and watching us enter another of the many locks that allowed us to move up and down the river without the river running wild.

There was beauty great and small. From the wonders of the changing palate of colors on the horizon to the tiny insect world that watched us pass as we passed them. Technological wonders allowed me to video chat with my brothers at midnight as we glided along New Meuse River. My God, what a time to be alive. But I still needed to get some rest before the morning came.

Checking the weather was a bit unsettling, as it had been for much of our journey. A seventy percent chance of rain starting around 2:00 in the afternoon. That was just when we were scheduled to get into Keukenhoff Gardens. Just the highlight of this cruise. Well, the actual weather had been kinder to us than the forecast. Just hope that remained the case and put in a request to He/She who makes the rain come to hold it off until after the pictures. I understand that the flowers need the rain too.

Our docking port was the city of Rotterdam. I had researched it a bit and expected a very modern and well planned layout with some awesome architecture. We turned in our cabin keys, gathered up our audio receivers and gear we would need for the morning outing to Kinderdijk. This was the location of some of the most well preserved historical windmills in the world. The owner/operators had often had the mills in the family for generations and they were paid by the state to keep them operational for both history and function. They still functioned to pump water between the levels of land to keep arable land from becoming swamp even though huge electric pumping stations were now doing the majority of that work.

Getting onto the bus I found myself sitting behind the couple from Brazil that I had heard was on the boat. Our bus tour would be conducted in English and the guests from Brazil and Japan joined us even though their command of the language was not good, but it was better than their German. One of the gusts from Japan had a terrible cough, but it was a bit too late to remember my mask. When I offered to make some translations into Spanish for the Brazilian couple they were very receptive as Portuguese is very similar to Spanish.

Driving through Rotterdam we passed several sculptures and well known buildings including driving under the Cube Houses, designed by Piet Blom. The apartments were yellow and white cubic structures that looked as if they had been taken apart and stacked like children’s blocks over the street.

Our Guide, Diana, explained this as we left the city and worked our way out to Kinderdijk. Her name was easy for me, even though I am notoriously bad with names, because today was Coronation Day for King Charles. She also explained that the name of the area came from the story about the flooding of the dike that left a baby in a bassinet floating in the water with a cat perched on it to balance the mini-boat and keep it from flipping over with the baby inside. Kinder - Child. Dijk - Dike. There you go. I did my best to translate the story into Spanish for our Brazilian guests as well as the important things like where and when to get back together.

Our approach to the windmills was to be in the style of those who had seen them when they were new. We would boat up to them. Unfortunately our boat was not working. Fortunately the pilot procured a backup for our needs.

In what could easily have been mistaken for a Disney Jungle Cruise boat we pushed off from the shore and motored silently under electric power out of the residential area where we had parked and started off through the canals toward the nineteen windmills that still worked these waters. Most of them were built 1738-1740, but one is still there from before 1540. There were ducks and geese and cows to be seen along the shoreline.

Diane explained the rigging of the sails on the windmills to power them for pumping or for grinding, depending on their design. The newer designs, from 1740, were designed to turn the turret into the wind for optimum performance. The single mill from 1540 required turning the upper half of the entire structure to perform the same task. Each of these units therefor required two doors to get into the building, because the propeller may be spinning directly in front of the door. Diane told a sad story about a young child who made that fatal error and the mother was killed by the spinning blade while chasing after the child.

Crossing under a small bridge you could see many of the mills all lined up on either side of the waterway. The small path along the edge was frequented by walkers and bikers from locally and tourists from around the world. Not crowded, but active. I even got a shot of a goose taking flight directly in front of one of the mills.

I had been using my long lens to get shots of the birds along the way, but now changed up to the landscape 12-40mm Olympus Pro lens for the scenes that were opening up before us. As we approached the dock at the mill where we would disembark I could see the keeper using a long hook, like a pool cleaning tool, to pull down the next blade on the mill and open some canvas to increase the grip on the incoming breeze.

As we went ashore we were invited inside the structure. The furnishings and decorations appeared to have frozen in time around 1920’s or 30’s. Photographs hung on the walls. There was an old sewing machine and tins of cocoa powder and baking materials. The layout was a combination of a cabin and ship’s quarters. At the center of it all were the works of the ancient mill. Wooden gears as tall as a man with glass to keep out unwise hands. The full diagram of the works was against the wall in a draftsman’s style that reminded my of Leonardo DaVinci.

Looking out the closed “Backdoor” you could see the blade of the mill spinning by the window every 4-5 seconds with a whoosh. The whole time I was watching this happen the wooden hardware was creaking along at an unlabored pace behind me and pulsing through the building like a living thing. Another place where, if you took the time to listen, you could literally hear history.

We soon met at the appointed time at the appointed place to continue our journey through the landscape of Kinderdijk. Crossing over a small bridge just beyond the mill we had just left I could see up the waterway to the many other mills that made up this network. I paused to create panoramas with my camera and soon found myself falling behind. Long legs serve me well in these situations, but this is why I enjoy private tours when at all possible.

I had nearly caught up when a group of ducks demanded that I stop, for just a moment or two, to record their cuteness.

Again I put the spurs to it and was just able to hear Diana saying something when the most lovely image leaped into my sight. A scattering of yellow flowers in the foreground framed the two hundred and eighty-three year old windmill set before me that had obviously been cleaned and polished for me to behold today. The white mortar between the bricks was shining in the sun and I got down on my knees. Not anything spiritual exactly, but in order to get a better shot. Well, maybe a little spiritual. Thank God for the sunshine!

Having peeled off our outer layer of clothing we walked the rest of the way to the visitor’s center next to the modern pumping station. With a bit to time before our bus picked us up we were left to shop and such. Not our favorite pastime, but this is how it was scheduled. We sampled a bit of local cheese and had our first fresh stroopwafel. It is a pair of baked disks like sugarcane material with a layer of warm caramel between them. A tasty snack, and required sampling when in the Netherlands. Dusty was happy to see MIffy objects. A little rabbit character for children that was designed locally, but she had first seen in Japan years before.

I was happy with how the morning had gone and would gladly have gone directly to see the tulips at Keukenhoff Gardens, but we were not scheduled to go for a couple of hours. So we went back to the ship for our lunch and to wait for the bus to the gardens. And to check the weather report.