Kinderdijk

Kinderdijk sits in the Alblasserwaard polder about fifteen kilometres east of Rotterdam, where the Lek meets the Noord. Nineteen windmills were raised here around 1740 to drain the polder, and they remain the largest concentration of old windmills anywhere in the Netherlands, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997. The name means ‘children’s dike’, from the story of a cradle found floating after the Saint Elizabeth flood of 1421, kept balanced and dry by a cat leaping back and forth inside it. Level towpaths run the length of the mill lines, and the whole site can be walked or cycled.