A early cold and windy morning at the windmill’s at Kinderdijk.

It doesn’t get more Dutch than cheese, tulips and windmills! The splendid windmills of Kinderdijk to see how the Dutch have been controlling the waters for over 1000 years. It’s a unique spectacle even more so with a nice Sunrise

Kinderdijk (literally translated Children’s Dike) is actually a village just a little 15km South-East of Rotterdam, the group of windmills took the name as well and yes it’s pretty cool that some people just have those windmills as their regular view. Back in the 18th century (1740) a whopping 19 windmills were built there by the water managing Dutch, one was put there already in the 16th century! It’s now the largest group of old windmills in the Netherlands, since 1997 it’s been a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The windmills were built there in order to drain the polder and create some new ‘Nederland’ when measures taken before 1740 proved not to be enough. Kinderdijk windmills were built to pump pump out excess rainwater from the polder.

All of the windmills are still functional, but are no longer needed for the system. As a new pumping stations has been build for this task