Netherlands: the baby in the water

The first shore excursion we took on our Rhine cruise was one you could certainly have guessed ahead of time: the lovely panorama of windmills, canal, and sky that you see above. Specifically, we stopped at the World Heritage site of Kinderdijk, a lovingly preserved—but still completely functional—lineup of these marvels of engineering and symbols of Holland.

And they're not just picturesque (although they certainly are that!). You can see our informative volunteer guide, Steya, on the right. She's explaining some of the low-tech but very effective mechanisms for regulating the operation of the windmills. Really fascinating stuff, how these folks have been able to reclaim land from sea and marsh for hundreds of years.

(As any of you who remember my tales from 2017 might recall, the shore excursions on Viking tours are astoundingly good. All the guides are locals who are not only knowledgeable, but are also adorably fond of the architecture, scenery, and culture that they explain to the tourists. This trip kept up the high standard, with the additional endearing touch that they were all so glad to be back on the job after the covid hiatus...please let's not need to have one of those again!)

Here's a couple of shots, getting closer and closer to this iconic structure:

And although most of the windmills are actually lived in by their operators and attendant families (we saw laundry drying on a line), one of them was open for us to tour. Here's a glimpse of these unique living quarters...

...and a shot Henry took looking out one of the upper windows, giving you a different perspective on the vanes...

As you've probably noticed, we had gorgeous weather for this outing (and in spite of repetitive bad forecasts, we had good weather almost the whole trip!) and we came at just the right season not only to see lots of tulips, but also fruit trees in bloom all along our route:

Henry went for a further walk down the canal, along with some fellow Viking passengers, who kindly snapped this photo...

...while I ambled slowly back to our Alruna. In the canal close to the visitor center, there's a sculpture that "explains" how this area got its name (which means "child's dike"). A legend tells of a big flood that washed a baby in his/her cradle into the canal. It would have been swamped and the baby drowned, but a quick-thinking cat jumped onto the cradle and kept it balanced. Here's the illustration:

After getting a good look at the urban side of the Netherlands, it was nice to have this contrasting, rural perspective on the country, and its perpetual battle against the rising waters. A battle it's still winning, and possibly offering methods for other low-lying regions to use in order to survive waters that will surely be rising steadily this century. But I'm not worried about Holland in this regard, no matter how much further below sea level they might find themselves; I think they have matters well in hand.