Mapping the path

Around the Rhine

Day 8: Delfshaven & Kinderdijk 

At first light, I stepped out onto our balcony to get a sense of our new surroundings. We were docked on the Nieuwe Maas river in the center of Rotterdam, Europe’s largest port, about 275 miles from where we had started the day before in Strasbourg. To the east, the scarlet-red Willemsbrug bridge, still illuminated, seemed to capture and reflect the sunrise as it spanned both the river and the horizon beyond.

I showered and dressed quickly, then headed up to the top deck of the AmaKristina. I positioned myself next to a heated wading pool letting off a steady cloud of steam into the frosty morning air. As the sun rose and silhouettes revealed their true forms, I could see that Rotterdam is a surprisingly modern city.

This is due in large part to the leveling of the strategic port city by the German Luftwaffe in May 1940, and again by Allied bombing in March 1943. With this total destruction came an opportunity to breathe new architectural life into the scene. The city is full of stylish, unconventional buildings in all manner of shapes and colors, like a collection of toy blocks spilled across an urban landscape.

Our tour options for the morning were to see Rotterdam by foot or bicycle, or to take a short bus ride to Delfshaven, a small, 14th century harbor that escaped the destruction of World War II.  We chose history over modern architecture.

Delfshaven (“Port of Delft”) was built in 1389 to serve the town of Delft, famous for its Delft Blue pottery – tin-glazed earthenware decorated with delicate blue patterns and pastoral scenes. Delft did not have its own port and had grown weary of paying tolls to neighboring (and competing) Rotterdam, so the town built its own harbor about six miles to the south on the Nieuwe Maas.

In addition to providing warehouses for the Dutch East India Company and other merchants, the workers of Delfshaven were engaged in shipbuilding, fishing, and distilling genever – a juniper-flavored cross between whiskey and gin made primarily in Belgium and the Netherlands. This malt-wine is considered to be an ancestor to British gin, which was invented after genever was introduced to Britain.

We began our tour at the end of the harbor, walking towards the river. Our first stop was Pelgrimvaderskerk (“Pilgrim Fathers’ Church”), which dates to at least 1417 and was the final stop the Pilgrims made before launching their journey to the New World. The English Dissenters had left the Church of England in 1608, escaping to the Netherlands and settling in Leiden, about 20 miles north of Delfshaven. They acquired a ship, the Speedwell, and in July 1620 gathered at the quay alongside Pelgrimvaderskerk to pray before making their voyage west.

The Speedwell made it to Southampton, where the group picked up additional Separatists and colonists, then leaked during two attempts to sail with the Mayflower to America — making it about 300 miles on the second attempt before being forced to turn back. After spending nearly a month and a half living on ships since leaving Delfshaven, the remaining passengers crammed onto the Mayflower for two more months on the open seas.

We continued down the the east side of the harbor, the morning light reflecting gently off the glassy water. It certainly felt like a working harbor, with many vessels moored to the little marina. But it was eerily quiet; the surrounding antique shops, studios, gin bars, and breweries had not yet opened, and there was barely a soul in sight on this Saturday, save for a few curious neighborhood cats padding about.

At the end of the narrow quayside lane, we came upon Wind Korenmolen de Distilleerketel, an impressive Dutch windmill but a young one: It was built in 1986 near the site of a windmill from 1727 used to grind malt for the local genever distilleries. That mill burned down in 1899, and an earlier replacement was destroyed by the Germans in World War II. Today’s mill contains a shop at its base selling souvenirs, coffee, and various flour-based products, but it remains a working mill.

We crossed a bridge and walked back up the west side of the harbor, admiring the craftmanship and care given to some of the ships on display. Delfshaven’s long maritime history is perhaps best embodied as the birthplace of one of the most famous seamen in the Netherlands, a country with a rich history of naval warfare and ocean navigation.

The son of a sea captain, Pieter Pietersen Hein’s naval career did not get off to an auspicious start. As a teenager, he suffered from extreme motion sickness, typically a disqualifying condition for a sailor. But it got much worse: In his early 20s, Hein was captured by the Spanish Habsburg Empire and held as a galley slave for four years before being traded for Spanish prisoners. He was promptly captured again by the Spanish near Cuba and spent another four years in their custody.

Hein decided he’d had enough of the Spanish and in 1607 sailed with the Dutch East India Company to Asia, returning years later as a captain. In 1621, he joined the fledgling Dutch West India Company as a vice admiral, conducting raids against Portuguese holdings in Brazil and capturing more than 30 Portuguese merchant ships.

But Hein’s greatest fame — and what must have been a revenge-laden source of satisfaction — was his capture of a Spanish treasure fleet near Cuba loaded with gold, silver, and other goods from the Americas and the Philippines. Hein’s fleet took 16 ships and claimed a booty worth about 11.5 million guilders, a massive sum that funded Dutch war efforts against the Habsburgs for the next eight months.

We ended the tour with quite a bit of time to spare. Our group was itching to find a shop or two that catered to tourists. Outside the harbor, though, we found a much more modern, working-class Rotterdam neighborhood filled with ethnic shops and restaurants. Rotterdam has the highest percentage of foreignors from non-industralized nations in the Netherlands — just more than half the population came from outside the country or has at least one parent born outside of the Netherlands. There are about 80,000 Muslims in the city, 13% of the population, and Rotterdam’s mayor for the past 10 years, Ahmed Aboutaleb, is a practicing Muslim of Moroccan descent.

Back on the bus, our tour guide — a woman in her 60s who sounded perpetually exhausted and fatalistic — spoke about the immigrant population, how Rotterdam has welcomed them with open arms without having a real plan for successful cultural assimilation. She seemed resigned to whatever fate would come of this (and, indeed, to anything else that may occur in this obligatory march toward inevitable ennui called life). Certainly, the landscape of modern Rotterdam has been changed by more than just its bright new architecture.

Back at the AmaKristina, we sat down for lunch as the ship set sail, heading east on the Nieuwe Maas. About five miles later, the river splits into the Lek and Noord rivers surrounding Kinderdijk, a village with 19 windmills built around 1740 to pump water out of the land reclaimed from the rivers. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997 and is the largest concentration of old windmills in the Netherlands.

Kinderdijk (“children dike”) gets its name from the flood of Saint Elizabeth in 1421, when a heavy storm from the North Sea blew across the Netherlands, breaking dikes and flooding low-lying areas (called “polders”). Between 2,000 and 10,000 people died in the flood, ranking it as the 20th worst flood in history. The Alblasserwaard polder — the triangle of land containing Kinderdijk — was somehow spared during the flooding.

After the storm had passed, as the story goes, a villager went out to inspect the dikes and spotted a cat balanced atop a wooden cradle, floating in the water. As the cradle drifted closer to the villager, he saw that it contained a baby; the cat’s careful balancing trick had kept water out of the cradle, saving the child. The story led to the folktale of “The Cat and the Cradle” and the name of the village itself.

We walked off the boat and down to the tourist entrance to the village, where there is now a diesel-powered pumping station that does the work of 24 windmills. We then set out on a footpath running along the village’s main canal, with huge windmills staggered at intervals along either side.

It was a simple, beautiful scene. The low afternoon sun cast a golden glow, brightening the tall autumn grasses along the canals. It gave a luminous feeling to everything, like walking through an intensely rendered oil painting. The sharp and stately windmills each received their moment of consideration as we passed. Some were turning, their blades throwing rhythmic shadows across the landscape.

At the end of the path is Museummolen Blokweer, a windmill-turned-museum with living quarters and a small kitchen, plus a small farm display outside. Even on this chilly November day, the windmill was fairly packed with tourists, making it difficult to take in the milieu of tiny-house living. Feeling a bit claustrophobic, I left. I milled about (sorry, pun intended) the farm property for a while, taking in a unique rural setting in gorgeous, amber light.

We then boarded a small tourist boat and drifted back through the main canal to our starting point. This gave us a closer look at a few of the windmills and their surrounding properties — bucolic scenes with tiny farm houses, wooden docks, and stone bridges. The day felt full of warmth and ease as we floated by these gentle pastoral displays.

Back near the entrance, we stepped into a large gift shop that included a corner section of Delft Blue pottery adorned with examples of the Netherlands’ famous windmills.

We walked back to the AmaKristina, where Janet was already setting up for a pop quiz on wine, with bottles of her fabulous reds as prizes. I passed on answering some of the easier questions — “What are the five grapes of Bordeaux?” — knowing Janet would arrive at our dinner table with an armful of Cabernet-powered goodness.

After dinner, there was a music trivia event in the lounge, with much dancing. This sort of thing always feels like forced fun to me, uncomfortable and embarrassing. If my group decides to join in, I will reluctantly take part, shuffling around awkwardly with a stiff smile and sweaty forehead. Otherwise, I’m not having it. But the people participating in this little music contest — who no doubt expect and anticipate this entertainment on a river cruise — were clearly having Actual Fun. And good for them. Really.

Unmoved, I decided to call my son, then call it a night.

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