Windmills, Clogs and Pannenkoeken

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Holland, Netherlands, Niederland…anyway you say it, that is a great country. There is just a whole different vibe in the Netherlands versus other parts of Europe. The Flemish part of Belgium has a little of that feel but it just isn’t the same. I had read about this place, Kinderdijk which has the largest concentration of windmills and I thought it would be a great place to take the kids. It was very complicated to get there via public transportation so we rented a car for the day. Renting a car here is not cheap, but we figured that once you added up all of the buses and trains and factor in the (sometimes) convenience of coming and going as you please that it would be worth it. Plus, it would shake things up in our travel routine. We got up at the usual time and since we weren’t rushing to catch a train we had breakfast at home. We picked up the car at 9:30, a cute, little red Citroen. Jonathan was the driver (he thought the diesel engine was quite peppy and nothing like my old diesel maxima!) and I was the navigator.

It took us about two hours total to get to Kinderdijk but that included stopping to have coffee and pee. It was really easy to navigate the roads and the directions we had were pretty straight forward. Once off the highway, however, Abigail did get car sick (in her defense the road was crazy windy and at least she gave us plenty of warning so we were able to give her something to throw up in). It was a cute little Dutch town we drove through to the molen (windmills). It was unreal. This might have been my favorite day trip. It was so picturesque. The day was bright and warm but not too hot. We parked and had a picnic on the canal in front of some of the windmills. We toured one of the windmills and found out that the area was first developed in the 1300’s but it wasn’t until the 1700’s that they needed more power to deal with the rising water and built all of these windmills. Fantastic. There are little pathways through the canals and next time we go I definitely want to rent bikes so we can explore a little more. This time we chose to go on a great boat ride down one of the canals which the kids really enjoyed. Most of the windmills today are private homes.

We stopped and had ice cream and then saw that it was only 3pm. We had hours before we had to get back to Leuven and a car to take us somewhere. We opened up our big book and checked out the Netherlands. Jonathan and I had both only previously been to Amsterdam so there was quite a bit of country to choose from. We were very close to Rotterdam so we drove through there (it was leveled during WWII and the rebuilt city looks like Anytown, USA - at least from our vantage point). The girls all napped and we continued on our way to the town of Delft. Another picture perfect Dutch town with canals everywhere; it is also the place where the famous white and blue Delft pottery is made. We found a place to park the car and walked around. There were some beautiful old churches and a large flea market in the square. There were all sorts of souvenir shops and so the kids had a blast trying on all of the wooden clogs. We stayed for dinner at a café in the market. The girls had a Dutch specialty, pannenkoeken (Emma with bananas and chocolate and Abigail with strawberries and cream) and there were plenty of smiles all around

On our walk home we went the long way via the old town gate which sort of looks like two turrets from a castle. As with many towns in Europe there used to be a wall around the whole city and this is the one remaining gate that was a part of that structure. It is currently a private home and art gallery and it was a nice end to our day. So there were no playgrounds today but plenty of clogs and windmills and pannenkoeken making it a quintessentially Dutch day. The girls really earned their country patch for their backpack today.

We left Delft at 7:30 to drive home. Abigail fell asleep immediately but Eliza and Emma were up until the very end. We were able to park the car in the lot at the Begijnhof and Jonathan will have to return it in the morning before 9am. I had forgotten how nice it is to be able to bring as much stuff as you might potentially need and not have to worry about lugging it around, but I still don’t miss driving everywhere. This trip was so much fun, and such a bounce back after our mini disaster last weekend. This weekend if the weather holds we will find another place nearby to tackle; I just can’t sit still!

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Comments

[Laramees]

WOW
Hello everyone. This looks great. What an amazing adventure. Takes me back...I have a pix just like Eliza wearing wooden clogs! I think we need to put this one on the list of visits for the Laramee clan. Glad things turned out better than the weekend. Keep them coming!