Our second day in the Netherlands was a national holiday - Ascension Day. It is 40 days after Easter. Most of the places close on this holiday, including UNESCO-IHE (fortunately, we arrived a day before the holiday). Therefore, the team decided to take a field trip to the windmills in Kinderdijk, Netherlands.
We took a train from Delft to Rotterdam Lombardijen and switched to a bus for the final destination. However, there was a little problem in Rotterdam Lombardijen - we only had a few minutes for the connection, while we had no idea where the bus stop was. We went from side to side to find the right bus stop; however, the bus arrived before we found the bus stop. After chasing it for a minute, the bus left in front of our eyes and we had to wait for an hour (less buses due to the holiday). Once we got on the bus, it was pretty fast (they have a special lane for the buses and let the buses go first at some of the roads and intersections), which I think is a wonderful idea to encourage public transportation.
The sight in Kinderdijk was just astonishing. Kinderdijk has a system of 19 windmills was built around 1740. These windmills are the largest concentration of old windmills in the Netherlands. Many part of the Netherlands are below sea level. In order to keep their feet dry, windmills are designed to solve part of the problem - by draining the land. One of the windmills was opened for visiting. We had the chance to get into that windmill and get very close to the sails (blades) - while it was turning moderately fast. Now, the Archimedes screws pump system has replaced some of the windmills.
An overview.
Windmills.
Windmill.
More windmills.
Sadly, we didn't have a group of 20 to receive the €2,75 discount rate.
A close-up.
Getting really close.
We were there.
We were there.
The Archimedes screws.
Windmills VS Pump System..
A group picture.
(L to R: Dr. Yeh, Michael, Wendy, me, Robert, Duncan, and Dipesh)
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