Every country has those typical things for which the country is known. The Netherlands has several. One of the things I was determined to see while I was there was windmills. A brief search of the internet and I found Kinderdijk outside of Rotterdam. Rotterdam appealed to me anyway – something different, something not Amsterdam, but also a large port city. I like port cities – they tend to be a little more real and gritty than tourist-oriented capitals. So I traveled down to Rotterdam on Friday afternoon and checked into a lovely backpackers hostel called ROOM Rotterdam.
Saturday was windmill day. The day took longer to get going than I had hoped. It was 10am by the time I came down to (free) breakfast at the hostel. This turned out to be a good thing because a cursory glance at the website of the waterbus I was planning to take seemed to suggest that the next boat left at 12 noon. I had a little time to charge my various electronic devices.
Just before noon, I headed for the waterbus station. The waterbus is a boat that acts like a bus – passengers get on and off at various stops, just like a bus. The only difference is that it travels on water. It’s really a very pleasant way to travel if you’ve got enough navigable waterways – which the Netherlands is definitely not short of.
The waterbus website had indicated that a “Dagkaart” – a hop-on, hop-off day travel pass – could be purchased that would cover both the transport to and from the area and entry to Kinderdijk. The website failed to say where these day tickets could be purchased. I got to the waterbus stop but there was no ticket office. I assumed the staff on the boat would sell tickets as passengers got on. When the boat arrived, this didn’t seem to be the case. Eventually I asked and the waterbus staff member looked confused that I wouldn’t know and told me that someone would come around on the boat – as if it were perfectly natural. For someone used to transport systems that require you to pay before you get onto the vehicle, it seemed a little odd to me.
The waterbus headed off and we travelled down the river for several stops. The conductor/ticket collector/ticket sales person eventually came around. He informed me (and several other tourists seated nearby) that we wouldn’t be able to get out at Ridderkerk, the stop that the pamphlets and websites had indicated was usual place to stop for the Kinderdijk, because the small ferry that normally took passengers from the waterbus stop to the Kinderdijk didn’t run on weekends. Instead, we would need to get out at Alblasserdam and find our own way to Kinderdijk.
He asked if I had a bike with me – most people take their bikes (for free) on the waterbus. I said I didn’t and he told me I should get a bike because it would take me about 15 minutes cycling but 45 minutes to walk. When we landed at Alblasserdam, I headed out in the direction the conductor had indicated to hire a bike. Either I got the directions wrong or the waterbus conductor was less generous and interested than he seemed. Pretty soon I was quite a long way from the water with no bicycle rental shop in sight.
It was a pretty town so I didn’t mind wandering around a little. I walked along a main road past suburban homes. I thought I had seen a map on a square near where I had started out. I turned left at a bank to head back that way. I walked along the street for several blocks but did not find the square or the map. I turned left again and walked through a small shopping area. There were bicycle shops, all closed on a Saturday afternoon, but no bicycle rental places. There was a bakery and a restaurant and a hardware shop. There was even a van selling fish, an actual fishmonger’s van, doing a brisk trade. There didn’t seem to be a corner store, for some reason. I could have used a bottle of water. I realised I was now lost.
I followed the road past tiny, double story houses whose front windows looking directly onto the street. I was curious and interested in the little houses, with their wall decorations and their tiny gardens, but I kept finding myself accidentally looking right into people’s sitting rooms. I felt like an intruder. Suddenly I’d be looking at people drinking tea or having lunch or chatting with friends. I looked away. Yet, each window invites you to look with a flower arrangement or ornaments or potted plants or tea sets arranged just so to please the eye of the chance passer-by.
At a T-junction, I came upon a church tower and had to choose a direction. Church towers are great if you’re wandering in a strange town, just as long as you take note of what they look like. In this part of the world, there are quite a lot of them, so if you’re not paying attention two similar church towers can lead you somewhat astray. I took a picture of the tower, just to be safe, and turned left.
I rounded another corner. The houses seemed to go on forever in their little rows but across the road was a park. The park seemed like a good option, especially when I realised it was called Kinderdijk park. Sadly, it did not contain any actual windmills. It did, however, have goats and sheep and ducks and autumn trees and green, green grass around a tiny canal.
It also had rather a lot of cyclists sharing the same small path as the few pedestrians. By the time I had narrowly escaped being run over by a group of what must have been 10-year old boys, I was more than ready, now that the park had given way to suburban back gardens with vegetables and sheds, to take a road to the right. The road went up a hill. At the top of the hill, I found a main road and, across the road, the river I’d come in on that morning.
Without realising it, completely by accident (or perhaps instinct) I had un-lost myself. I guess the lesson is, well the lessons are, just keep walking and trust yourself. My meanderings had taken me right back to where I needed to be. I was glad I hadn’t panicked and gone back to Rotterdam on one of the buses I’d passed. I’d spent a good hour walking around the town but it was a great way to see an ordinary neighbourhood of ordinary people in the Netherlands.