Colin and Cecile Travels

 Another rainy day, but not too bad for visiting the windmills.  Kinderdijk (Pronounced like Kinder-Dike) is a village in the province of  South Holland, has 19 fully functional windmills.  These windmills are not activelly used for the water managment, as modern electric pumping stations do the work now, but they are kept in reserve in case there was a situation where there was no power to the pumping stations.  We travelled along a Canal in an 19th Century Barge that has been refitted with an electric motor. The guides at this site are all volunteers that work with the foundation that preserves the windmills.  These are part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  Viking provided the money to the foundation to restore the barge we rode in. The Windmills on one side of the canal were all built out of brick while the ones on the other side were built out of wood and Thatch. The one above is one of the brick windmills. This row of windmills are the ones bade ...

Keukenhof Gardens, about an hour's drive outside of Amsterdam, is a garden that was originally created as a demonstration garden by the bulb growers of the regios where they could show off their various flowers.  It is only open for about two months in the spring when the flowers are in bloom.   The gardens were celebrating their 75th year. The gardens primarily focus on Tulips, but many varieties of Daffodils can be founs throughout the park There are pavillions where specialty varieties along with potted displays and information about te various growers can be found.  This was the first pavillion we walked through the Willem Alexander Pavillion. There is a lake in the center of the park with a fountain in the center. One of our favorites in the park were the various Hyacinth beds  because the beautiful fragrance they were giving off The growers maintain their own areas so there are various shapes  and patterns of flowers I had never seen tufted Daffodils ...