Windmills near Alkmaar and Rotterdam

There are many groups of historic and still operating windmills to visit in Holland.

When starting in Amsterdam, my first choice would be to go to Alkmaar and visit the oldest windmill in the country, and a few working grain and water pumping mills near by and tour around to find some more on the way back. Alkmaar is the birth place of saw mill technology in which the rotating power was transferred into a to-and-fro movement.

If you are interested in steam powered mills, pumping polder water out of the polder into the IJssel lake, then I can design a specific tour taking into consideration the specific opening times. During this tour we may choose to take the touristic road, traversing the flat polder lands with historic villages such as Graft and De Rijp. Grazing cowns still provide all of the milk for the world famous cheese production.

South of Rotterdam is a world famous group of mills at Kinderdijk. This is quite a distance if you start from Amsterdam. We may combine this with the mighty Delta works for sea water protection. The water defence park Neeltje Jans would be a logical top on this tour.