Kinderdjik was a favorite of ours. We walked along the canal path and looked at all of the windmills. We went inside one that is set up as if a family were living it. It seems pretty cramped by modern standards but these windmills were built in the 1700's so heating a larger space would be problematic and also perhaps difficult to do structurally given you have huge blades revolving around the exterior of your home! The blades are massive and make a distinctive whoosh sound as they rotate, especially impactful if you're standing directly under one! You also have to be able to climb multiple flights of stairs several times a day and listen to the sound of the wooden mechanism turning which is located inside the windmill. I stood at the kitchen sink in the windmill and the motion of the blades rotating past the window every few seconds actually made me a little dizzy! I told Mike that would probably be the hardest thing to get used to.
We walked to the end of the path and then took the shuttle boat back to the visitor center. One of the workers on the boat saw me counting up the number of windmills on the map, and started telling us what it takes to live in one of these windmills now. There are several windmills that still function and to live in one of those (for 500 Euro per month) you have to become a certified miller. This is because you are required to operate the windmill for a minimum of 60,000 cycles per year. In order to do that you need to know not only the operation of the mill and sails but also wind speed and other factors. I didn't realize that the entire top of the mill can rotate, not just the blades. That way you can adjust the position of the mill according to the direction of the wind. It was very interesting and we enjoyed talking to him very much. There are windmills spread around the countryside here and there but Kinderdjik is the place to go if you want to see several at once and be able to go inside one.
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