That’s ah-goo-da Cheese!

Today started with a beautiful sunny day. We awoke to our ship sailing on its way to Kinderdijk where we were looking forward to seeing many windmills in action after lunch. 

In the meantime, we enjoyed breakfast together again and Bill and Karen shared their morning incident when Karen dropped her sapphire and diamond ring down the drain of the bathroom sink when she was trying to put it on. Bill was able to remove the drainpipe and retrieve the ring and we then called maintenance to come and put the pipe back together. Fortunately – no problem.

After breakfast, Bev, Karen, and Vicki had another game of Hand and Foot while we sailed on into a rain storm and then out of it.

Soon we arrived at Kinderdijk and the storm had passed. The guys relaxed and came up to the Aquavit Terrace to join us for lunch. BTW – about the food on the ship - it is really good, and we all especially love the soups. We have a different kind of soup each lunch and dinner and they have all been great as are the desserts.

When we arrived at Kinderdijk, we split up to go on different excursions. Bev, Paul, and Ric took a walking tour to the windmills, and Bill and Karen took a two-part excursion starting with walking among the windmills and then taking a bus to a dairy farm that produced cheese – more on that later.

Now about Kinderdijk – According to legend, Saint Elizabeth’s Flood of 1421 ravished the land around Kinderkijk and drowned up to 10,000 people. The following day, an infant girl was found drifting in a cradle. The baby had remained afloat by the tireless efforts of a cat jumping back and forth to keep the cradle balanced. Look closely and you’ll see the cat and child in the cradle.

The child was retrieved from the water and returned to her mother. The story became a popular Dutch fairytale, and the village was named Kinderdijk meaning ‘children’s dike’. 

At one time there were 150 windmills in the area of Kinderdijk, but today there are 28 of which we were able to see 15 of them. They were built in 1738. This is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the windmills are used to pump water from low lying fields when the water level rises. 

 

We had a chance to go into the windmill where the ‘miller’ and his family would live, and we climbed up all three levels of the interior. Many windmills today still have families who live in them. Here is the living room and kitchen.

We managed to finish our tour and get back to the ship without any raindrops but it was still a bit chilly.  

 Bill and Karen took the second part of their excursion on a bus to a dairy farm.

 

Upon arrival they were greeted by the farm dog – Bo – who was so excited to see all of us.

We were given a tour of the cheese making process by the farmers wife and enjoyed tasting all the varieties of the gouda cheese that they make there. 

Next, we walked through the several barns with the farmer to see all the cows.  They are Holstein cows and were divided up by the stage they were at in the process of producing milk. Many were pregnant and ready to deliver, some were milkers, others were young females waiting to get pregnant and then there were the cute calves and babies.

While we were at the farm, the ship sailed from Kinderdijk to Rotterdam and our bus took us to meet the ship there.  We were reunited with Ric and Vicki and Paul and Bev for dinner – with another delicious soup.

Good night from the Netherlands!