Kinderdijk - Old Meets New

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Kinderdijk Windmills
Unique & Iconic Water Management

Much of Holland is below sea level, but yet it doesn't flood.  Why?  A visit to Kinderdijk gives you the extraordinary opportunity to visit a UNESCO World Heritage in Holland and answer the question for yourself.

During your visit you can see 19 windmills from the 18th century and even go inside one to see what it was like to live there.
Read More: Inside a Kinderdijk Windmill

Nowhere else in the world can you find the complete history of water management at a single location. The windmills and pumping stations drain the excess water from the Alblasserwaard into the river Lek via the Elshout sluices. Subsequently, the river discharges the water into the sea.

There is a wealth of information on Kinderdijk's website.  You can even play the Battle Below Sealevel Game to explore the timeline. 

Our Second Visit

During our Avalon Waterways Rhine & Moselle river cruise, we stopped in Kinderdijk on our way to Amsterdam.   We had visited before during our previous cruise to Holland during tulip time.   This is a destination that can be visited multiple times and still leaving more to be explored.

Tip:  Purchase a ticket for one or both of the Tourist Vessels

The Canal Hopper Prins Friso takes you to four of our visiting points. The electric ‘whisper’ boat starts at our Visitor Centre Wisboom and then sails to the Parking Area, Museum Mill Nederwaard, Musuem Mill Blokweer and back to the Visitorcentre. You can get on and off at all visiting points. The Prins Friso is an open ‘terrace’boat. It completes its tour in 30 minutes and is suitable for wheelchairs.

 

The Canal Cruiser (Ferry No 6) takes you for a tour that starts and ends at the Parking Area. It takes you along the windmills in about half an hour. 

 

We have yet to do this - since we were part of an organized tour.  We could have gone on our own and had time to do at least one of the boat rides.   Learn More

Additional photos can be found on our Rhine & Moselle Shutterfly page:

Kinderdijk

Inside Kinderdijk Mill

Click on the image to the left for more Blog posts about this trip.

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Happy Easter 2014

Wishing All Our Readers

A Happy Easter

We hope that you are having a great day with family and friends this Easter Sunday.

This picture was captured during an Easter visit to Holland and Belgium on Tulip Time river cruise.

One of the highlights of the cruise was the time spent in Keukenhof Gardens.

Have you ever seen more than 7 million tulips, daffodils and hyacinths, all in bloom?  

Keukenhof Gardens - Netherlands (94 photos)

Visitors from all over the world as well as the Netherlands will be visiting the Keukenhof international flower exhibition over the Easter holiday. The park is in flower and wonderful shows can be seen in the pavilions. Keukenhof is the ideal place for kicking off your Easter holiday in style.

Port Information - Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the capital city of the country known as the Royal Kingdom of the Netherlands. Holland, as many believe the country to be called, is the name of 2 provinces within the Netherlands: North and South Holland.

The seat of the government is located in the Hague, Den Haag in Dutch. The Queen lives in the Hague and every April the biggest celebration of the year takes place on Queens Day. This year, it falls on April 30th. This national holiday honors the birthday of the current Queen Beatrix's mother, Queen Juliana.

Seventeen million people claim the Netherlands as their home while 20 million people in the world speak Dutch, the national language. Dutch is a Germanic language, so you may recognize some of the words and phrases.

Amsterdam is known as the "Venice of the North" due to the web of canals that encircle the city. It is easiest to get around by "tram", bicycle, or on foot. One of our guides told us that it is very costly to own an auto. You have to pay for your parking spot, if you can even get one.

We spent all day Saturday and part of Easter Sunday in Amsterdam. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so here are links to the first of many photo albums documenting our Tulip Time River Cruise on AMA Waterways Amalegro.

Amsterdam Photo Albums:

AMA-Amalegro
Amalegro - Amsterdam
Amsterdam - Canal & City Tour

The next post will include our Easter Sunday ports of call: Volendam and Edam.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Amsterdam, Netherlands was the last port of our 12 Night British Isles / Norwegian Fjords cruise before returning to Harwich, England. It was a rainy day as we arrived in Amsterdam but that didn't dampen our excitement to explore this fabulous city.

Our day began by taking a short walk from our ship to a canal boat owned by the son of one of our traveling companions. Our guide showed us Amsterdam from the best vantage point of all, the canals.

Many people live on their canal boats which were docked along our path. It is an amazing sight to see flowers, lawn chairs, and other items that one might expect in a back yard, on the decks of these small boats. Traveling through the canals we'd see canal boat after boat on display as if in a contest. Of course, we knew better, they were simply homes on water that were decorated so that the inhabitants were comfortable.

Our first stop was at the Willet-Holthuysen Museum where we explored this 17th century mansion that shows how the wealthy lived in Amsterdam canal houses. We had a self-guided tour of the various art collections inside the old mansion. There were beautiful chandeliers, stained glass windows, and crystal on exhibit.

As you can see from this picture, we were able to view the gardens through the stained glass windows. For more pictures inside the museum, see our Amsterdam photo album. After we left the museum, we began the walking portion of our tour. We walked through the Red Light District, which is quite famous. You are not allowed to take photos once you are in the heart of the district. This is the oldest portion of the city.

Continuing our walking tour, we arrived at the Royal Palace on Dam Square. The picture on the right shows the interior of the palace. We've been to many palaces on our cruises, but this was one of the most impressive palaces we've seen. The Crystalline Chandeliers are amongst the most magnificent we've ever seen for example. The detailed marble interior, the massive hallways with towering ceilings, the various artwork and artifacts kept us in awe the entire time. Again, see our photo album for pictures inside the palace. If you have never been to Amsterdam, I'd highly recommend a visit to the Royal Palace.

After finishing our tour of the Royal Palace, we continued our walking tour of Amsterdam to another of the famous attractions, the Floating Flower Market. It was raining as we walked through the various shops in the market. We probably didn't spend as much time there as we would have if the weather were nicer.

We purchased some tulip bulbs to take back home. It is possible to bring the flower bulbs home to the United States as long as they have an inspection certificate on the package. When we arrived back in the U.S., we declared the bulbs, showed them to the customs agent, and had no problems. Unfortunately, we did plant the bulbs but the squirrels dug them up in the winter, so we never did see them bloom.

We walked to one of the nearby canals and once again boarded the canal boat for the final leg of our tour. The Jewel of the Seas was an awesome sight as we approached the pier. We had had a fabulous day in Amsterdam, despite the weather.

In a future article, I'll write about our second visit to Amsterdam where we explored more of this fabulous city. That time we had much more time because we spent two days there before our North Cape cruise. See our Cruise Website if you can't wait to read about it here.

Next up, I'll take you to the land of French Polynesia. The weather here is cold and snowy so I thought it would be fitting to talk about something warm and exotic.

Until then, happy sailing.
Chris