Friday evening in Brugge

For our 1st year anniversary we decided to stay a night in Brugge, Belguim. It was our first place to visit outside of The Netherlands too. A friend of ours recommended this as it is one of the most beautiful places in Europe. We left our apartment at quarter to 2pm and we got there at 5.30pm. It still surprised us to see how much different it is to travel now that we have a baby. Before we only have 1 small luggage and a bag for my husband and I for a short trip like this. Now that we have Orion 3 bags are just the minimum. It took as quite a while  because we have to make a stop to settle down the fussy britches.

It was raining when we got there and Pete had to look for a parking since the hotel parking was full.
We stayed in a place called Oud Huis de Peellaert (Old house of the Peellarrt) a 19th century aristocrat house that turned into a hotel.

We took a stroll around the town for awhile and headed to get some dinner. The city was lighted like a room full of candles and even though it was a mostly dark rainy and cold it was a lovely evening.

Brugge at night.

Map of Brugge inside the Tavern Burgoise where we ate flemish style beef stew and flemish style rabbit. Both were excellent.

Christmas Ornaments

That is the Belfry Tower. I climbed it all the way to the top. It was quite a climb but the view was beautiful.

One of the copy of Brugge of Madonna and child.

Inside a windmill

In my last post, we promised you pictures from inside of a windmill. It's not like what we thought it would be, but it is pretty amazing to think it was someone's house.  The windmill has five floors.

Ground floor is the kitchen area and the living room. We were surprised that the living room is fully decorated.

Sand, Soap and Soad.

My Mom has the same sewing machine.

There were 3 kids sleeping on that bed

The 2nd floor.

The bedrooms are all like this.

The 3rd floor give the impression that it belongs to a female member of the family.

Friends and Family.

The steps are small.

And the stairs inside are very step.

The 4th floor.

A cabinet that has some guy stuff.

 A handy Loo.

The 5th floor is all equipment that they use for their daily activities.

This is must be like an attic or storage room.

That is the 5th floor and its not open for public.

Off to Kinderdijk

This was one of Pete's ideas of things to see while we are in Netherlands. I remember he was telling me every time we talked about the places we want to visit in Europe times that we have to go to Kinderdijk. Honestly I wasn't keen of doing that, because I thought it was just array of windmills and  that we will not even spend an entire day there.

The drive going there is beautiful, usual Europe flat green fields that is somewhat breath of fresh air for us, since back home we are surrounded by mountains and hills. It takes about 1 hour and 15mins at the most to get to Kinderdijk by car. Train from Amsterdam or Eindhoven to Kinderdijk is almost 3 hours.

Hedge Farm

Very Dutch street in Kinderdijk

One of the towns in the Kinderdijk area.

Maybe he is a member of a marching band.

Parking at Kinderdijk cost 5 Euros for the whole day and the ticket will get you a free coffee in the Tourist Information Office. The information office is located around the other side of the canal from the parking lot where you can watch a 15 minute video about Kinderdjik.  I would suggest you see that, as it has some cool stuff about Holland and it is not a boring presentation at all. You can skip all of that and just head to small kiosk in front of the parking lot if you prefer. They sell tickets for the two museums and for canal cruise. We bought a ticket at the Museum and it got us a discounted price for the canal boat ride.

Our ¨National Geographic¨ photo

Picnic tables outside the Tourist Information Center

Workshop

 Blue Print of the windmill

Windmill Prototype

Prototype closer view

Orion and Dad looking goofy

We thought at first that it was a grain mill and they use water to power it. They actual are used to pump water out the area. Without the dikes most of the Netherlands will flood because majority of the country is situated more than 3 meters below sea level. Yep, we wouldn't have guessed it either. These dikes have helped to prevent Holland from being submerged in the water since 1750.

Excited to see Kinderdijk

Kinerdijk is for all.

The Kinderdjik in Dutch means Childrens dike. One of the stories is that people saw a cat balancing on  a basket with a baby in it during a flood. Another story is that the dikes were built with child labor. 

Orion and Mom. Love.

Later that day we took a boat ride which we were glad that we did because it was rather relaxing and the view up close to the windmills is beautiful. 

We learned that some of the windmills are family owned and passed on one generation to another. 

All the windmills we saw had people living in them. They are well maintained and still working. You can see that most of them have an outbuilding built beside them. Imagine living in one of the windmills and waking up with a peaceful view every morning.

That would be a nice place to hang out and read your book all day.

Happy Family..mmh Orion maybe not.

This is one of those chill kinda days for us. It's a tourist spot but when we were there it wasn't crazy like some other places we've been to. We recommend that you bring some snacks or go crazy and bring  a picnic bag since they have tables and chairs in the area. There is a caffeteria near the parking lot but they only sell snacks. The Information office has two vending machines with snacks bars and drinks. See you in our next adventure. 

P.S. We will post another blog about what's inside a windmill soon.