Friday, September 15, 2017

Day 10 - Windmills, Dikes, Villages, and Another Boat Ride.

Today we enjoyed a full day guided tour outside of the city.  Our Dutch guide picked us up at the botel and we enjoyed an upgrade to an oversized tour bus for just the 12 of us.  It was a lovely day with scattered clouds and lots of sunshine.  It only started raining at the end of the day... as usual...we are still enjoying the blessing of the Nordic weather gods.

We drove through farmlands and over lots of dikes and reclaimed land.  The small villages were postcard pretty.








In the village of Vollendam we got out and wandered the small streets and viewed the historic wooden homes, some dating back to the 1600's.

Our guide Vincent was well informed and quite pleasant.  We all enjoyed his time and talent.































From there we headed out to the windmills where we visited an operating mill with his Archimedes screw for pumping water.


























We all climbed up into the mechanism chamber just at the wind picked up and the piston started to turn.  Exciting!!!
















Next was a short drive to the cheese factory where we had a "cheesy" demonstation of cheese making and that of wooden shoes. The highlight of course was the "buffet" of cheeses and cookies!


















And I snuck into the girls bathroom...cus...well, because I could.

Back at the coast we enjoyed a fish and chips lunch on the boardwalk, wandered the harbor for a short time, and then boarded our boat to Marken.

































Vincent well over 6'5" so he was easy to spot in the crowd.  The boat ride was great with bright sun and a cool breeze.






We landed in Marken 30 minutes later and really enjoyed our walking tour of this really cool, historic, and beautifully preserved village.





























Back in the city, we all split up and the some of us went into the city center for Chinese.



The Chin Sea Palace was three stories, very busy, and the food was great.  The interior was of course ridiculously overdone "chinese."



1 comment:

Unknown said...

Most beautiful! How would it be to live there? Thank you for sharing 😎