Still Dry, Slightly Less High
Today we went on a bus from our hotel in Amsterdam to Kinderdijk, which is an UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is a village in an area of polder which has 19 windmills involved in the maintenance of the land, which would otherwise be flooded as it is below sea level. In fact, most of the maintenance is now done by a diesel and an electric pumping station, but the windmills are kept in full working order partly to preserve the World Heritage status, but also to help out the two main pumping stations in extreme circumstances. We were shown round the site and saw inside one of the windmills. The millers still occupy them, and the accommodation is incredibly cramped by modern standards.