Day 82: Naar Kinderdijk!

This weekend the right conditions finally came together for me to go to Kinderdijk. The weather was good and my friend Karim had a bike. Kinderdijk is a major tourist attraction about 15km southwest of Rotterdam. Kinderdijk is a small village known for it many windmills. The system of 19 mills built around 1740 is used to drain the polder. It is the largest concentration of old mills in the Netherlands.

The three of us set off at about noon and headed east along the Maas river.

After leaving Rotterdam we went through Capelle aan den IJssel, where we crossed a bridge over the IJssel into Krimpen aan den IJssel. After Krimpen there is a nice area of farms and nature. We even found some friendly horses. Though I think they were really hoping we had some food.

After the farming area we came to Krimpen aan de Lek. To cross this river we had to take a ferry.

On the other side of the river is the village of Kinderdijk.

And immediately on the other side of the village you encounter the mills. It really is quite a sight.

After we left Kinderdijk, we took the Waterbus back. The Waterbus is a ferry for people on foot or bikers, and goes up and down the river between Dordrecht and Rotterdam with several stops in between.
The inside:
Overall, it was a very nice trip. The weather was finally beautiful after a real miserable week. it was nice to enjoy a nice weekend before autumn arrives. Which I think will be very soon. At Kinderdijk we were able to go inside a mill, which was impressive. A lot of the mills are actually inhabited by people. I don't think the old mills are actually still used for draining the polder. Instead there are more modern ones. The only problem was that it was quite busy. There were a lot of tourists there. Not to mention wasps which insisted on interrrupting our lunch.