This is a really lovely place to visit, there are 19 windmills in a very small area, making it the ideal place to see one of the classic images of Holland. The majority of the mills were built in the eighteenth century and are spread along the central canals. You can notice the difference between the levels of water in the different canals, especially when compared to the much higher level of water in the River Lek.

One of the windmills was in action when we visited, and apparently on Saturdays during the summer all 19 mills are started up, the only place in the Netherlands where this happens. The second Mill we came across was opened as a museum for you to have a look around. It was quite interesting to look around and realise that these were not only machines for moving water but also houses and had very cramped living conditions. For those that care the UNESCO plaque is actually inside this Mill.

The Mill’s are 15km south of Rotterdam and you can catch a ferry down, it stops en route to Dordrecht. We travelled from Utrecht, there is an hourly bus (30 minutes past each hour from Utrecht Centraal) which takes an hour and a half to get there, the bus carries onto Rotterdam Zuidplien.

As a final note I would like to give a recommendation for the Restaurant aux Moulin’s, where they were very nice and cooked us omelettes after they had stopped serving, so that we didn’t get on the bus with empty stomachs!