A short trip to Zuid-Holland

Two weeks ago I was in the Netherlands, region Zuid-Holland.

The Netherlands are well-known for agricultural products like vegetables and cheese. The national symbol in our eyes is the windmill (or maybe Vrouw Antje, a woman wearing typical dutch clothes from centuries ago and is an advertising figure for a certain dutch cheese).

I read somewhere on the internet, that the number of windmills ist constantly decreasing because of the high costs of keeping the windmills in good shape. Industrial milling is less exhausting and cheaper than milling with a traditional windmill. So, many mills are given up. Because the traditional mills are mostly made of wood, they need much care. Thus the given up mills decays and were teared of. According to the same article, there are less than 1,000 mills remaining and the dutch government had set up a national holiday, the windmill day. On that day allow remaining windmills are open for visitors and especially kids should visit a windmill to get to know about the dutch heritage.

I don’t know, if the story is true, but I like the idea.

These windmills are not for milling cereals, but for pumping water. When we arrived, the area was full of people. Several busses with tourists from asia and pensioners of the USA were already there. But at 5 p.m. all the crowd was gone. So we were able to take some photos, too.

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