The Netherlands--Delft and the windmills

After a long train ride from Koln, and a long day of wandering through the streets of Amsterdam, we were ready for a nice train ride to the picturesque little village of Delft to spend the night.

We had picked out this touristy village as our last stop in this European adventure, because it's an easy train ride from Amsterdam and several other places we might visit. 

But just like the trains were on strike in Sorrento, and the metro workers were on strike in Rome, and the buses didn't stop as scheduled on the Amalfi coast . . . we ran into transportation changes around Delft. Instead of an easy train ride, the tracks outside of town were closed for maintenance. So we had to ride the train to the capitol city of The Hague, find the correct bus to the station, and then ride another bus to Delft. We've learned that traveling on public transportation in Europe means you must be flexible.

After checking into our hotel across from the train station, we set out to explore Delft. Instead of taking public transportation, we chose to walk our way around town. 

Those that choose to drive in The Netherlands must have good parking skills. These coveted parking spots next to the canal take a careful driver to back in between the trees without backing right into the water.

Most people choose to ride bikes, the favorite form of transportation in the flat land of The Netherlands.

While most of the water in the canals was clear, some was a little green. We're not completely sure why these houses have doors that open right into the water of the canal.

Our destination was the Market Center with its open plaza ringed by stores and restaurants. The plaza was anchored on one end with the Old Church.

The other end of the plaza was the Delft City Hall with its trademark red shutters.

In between the two, was an unusually large number of unusually large cheese shops.

But Denisa was on a mission to shop for the pottery that made this village famous. The Delft Pottery factory was down the street, and Denisa was looking for a blue Delft pottery cross. She was successful!

Delft was a good place to stay to make day trips to the capitol of The Netherlands at The Hague, or the cheese-loving town of Gouda. If we weren't battling the flu, we probably would have visited both of those stops. But we weren't running in high gear, so we opted for one main stop. Besides, having to catch a bus and then transfer to a train made traveling in this section of south Holland more difficult than usual. So we opted for a bus/train ride to Rotterdam. From the station, we walked to the Erasmusburg bridge to ride that strange boat that was approaching. That was the Netherlands version of a water taxi.

In a few minutes, we were on Waterbus #21, gliding under the bridge. All of our bus, train, and water taxi transportation was covered by the tourist-day-ticket we bought this morning at the tourist information office in Delft. 

Unexpectedly, our water taxi took us right beside Noah's ark!

Our destination for the day was Kinderdijk. This was the home of some big wooden shoes . . .

and wooden windmills.

A UNESCO world heritage site, Kinderdijk has 19 wooden windmills from the 18th century on display. This is the largest wooden windmill complex in the world.

These windmills were used to pump the water out of the polder for centuries. Much of this country was under water before the innovative Dutch figured out a way to reclaim the land from the sea to increase their land mass.

Windmills were everywhere along a walking trail that winds through the park. Entrance into this national park was free, and visitors are welcome to walk the trails and see the windmills from this distance. 

But if visitors want to ride on the boat coming down the canal, or watch the informational film, or enter the museum, they must purchase a ticket for 19 Euro.

We opted for the free walk on this beautiful day. We had once again wandered through more of God's wonders sprinkled with a few man-made windmills for interest.

This was our last full day in Europe, and it took all of our energy to make this day trip. This flu had really taken its toll on our energy level these last few days.

We had planned to make several stops in Rotterdam, and perhaps stop in the village of Gouda on the way back to Delft. But it was all Denisa could do to make it back to our hotel room in Delft. This flu and its cough were really getting worse on our last full day in Europe.

The next day we made the bus/train ride to the Amsterdam airport for the long airplane trip across seven time zones back to the United States. After two-hours of inching our way through the customs line at the Chicago airport, we narrowly caught our final plane to Kansas City. What a journey!