Windmills of Kinderdijk

I’ve been in the Netherlands several times but it’s my first time visiting the UNESCO-listed windmill complexe.
Kinderdijk is indeed worth a whole day trip!

History of Kinderdijk

It’s indeed a unique complex with 19 well-preserved windmills, illustrating Dutch’s ingenious water management technology and system for centuries.
It would be wise to remind that about one-third of the land is below sea level and about 17% of the land (polders) of the Netherland is artificially reclaimed from the sea and lakes. Therefore the Dutch have a long and intimate story of dealing with water. They even used their water line network to flood deliberately part of their lands to stop enemies during the wars. (Well it only worked well when the water line was not frozen!)

Kinderdijk means “children’s dyke” and its name would come from the legend/fairy tale “the cat and the cradle”, where a wooden cradle with a crying baby was spotted on the flood water (flood of 1421) with a cat jumping up and down on the cradle to keep it afloat.

How to get there

We went there by car from Kamperveen (1h30 drive) and there is paid parking just in front of the entrance.
It’s 5 € per day and you can redeem a cup of coffee inside the site.

Otherwise, it would be nice to take a waterbus from Rotterdam to Kinderdijk (when the water is not frozen, from April to October).

What to do inside the site

There are 3 different tickets at the entrance:

ticket only for the two windmill museums and the film in the visitor center pumping station
boat tour/canal cruiser (no stop boat tour going further than the canal hopper)
combined museum ticket + canal hopper ( hop-on-hop-off boat to different sites)

If you only want to see the scenery without going inside any museum, the bicycle path and footpath are always freely accessible.
We took the #3 ticket and went to visit the farthest windmill (Museum Windmill Blokweer) with the canal hopper and we stayed there for the whole afternoon!

Museum Windmill Blokweer

The Blokweer windmill museum illustrates all aspects of life as a miller in the 1950’s at the oldest windmill of Kinderdijk.
You can see inside the windmill the living space and outside in the yard.
The weather was wonderful and we really experienced what life was like for the miller and his family!