Windmills
 

For reasons that I don't fully understand, my wife loves them. But a search on windmills turns up very few suggestions. Any thoughts about dat trips from Amsterdam with a focus on windmills? Also, forgive the naive question, but are there no windmills converted into B&Bs?

I've not been there, but I think that Zaanse Schans comes up a lot when windmills come into the picture:

http://www.zaanseschans.nl/

Go out to Kinderdijk. But I'd suggest getting a car to do so. We spent the better part of the day trying to make train and bus connections there and back. It's a neat area of a number of windmills. People live in some, and a couple are museums open to the public, and one has food available. I don't recall a B&B.

By the way, how can you not appreciate windmills? They're so "picturesque".

By the way, type Zaanse Schans into the search box here and a couple of old threads will come up -- I'm sure that the more experienced travelers here had/will have lots to say. Also you get some other ideas for day trips.

I hesitated mentioning Zaanse Schans. It is worth a little trip, but it is sort of an "amusement park" version of a windmill village. Very touristy. However it may fill the bill and you can buy lots of souveniers there.

Another vote for Kinderdijk (by car!). It's one of the UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Interesting. I've never heard of Kinderdijk, so I looked it up. Looks like it's very close to Rotterdam.

http://www.kinderdijk.nl/

Looks like there's a windmill season. What's this?

There's a nice little museum in a windmill in Leiden, which is not far from Amsterdam and makes for a pleasant and easy day trip by train.

Bruges is a wonderful city to visit close to Amsterdam. It has windmills on the outside of the city. You can have a wonderful walking city and windmills at the same time. You can easily walk to the windmills from the Markt square. Have fun chasing windmills.

111op: I think that's the first day of the new season one can visit the working mill.
BTW, Kinderdijk is halfway between Rotterdam and Dordrecht, the last one being a very pretty city.

Ann1: Brugge to Amsterdam is about 250 km (or 160 miles) ... a 3 hour drive with a bit of luck!

We spoke to many people in Bruges that went to Amsterdam for the day and back at night. Bruges shouldn't be missed.

Ann1: I'm sure people will travel all the way from Amsterdam to Brugge but definitely not for those three windmills while there are hundreds of them in the Netherlands!

To me the internal workings of a windmill are the wonders. Wooden gears, cogs, walking beams. A wind mill is akin to our water wheel driven mills, used for grinding, sawing etc.

There are several windmills at Zaanse Schans and one of them is ALWAYS working (usually the so-called 'color mill' which was originally used for grinding pigments for paints) and can be toured so you can see all the working parts, the cogs, etc.

Easily reached from central A-dam by train. The site is one that was put together by moving period buildings, etc., from around the country.

Unlike Patrick, I have never found it to be "touristy" in the bad sense and if you want to see WORKING windmills that you can go INTO, this is a good place to do it.

Just want to add my endorsement of Kinderdijk. It's really lovely with many working windmills, one you can tour. Dordrecht is a nice town to visit too.

Another suggestion is the Netherlands Open-Air Museum near Arnhem. It has old buildings from all over the Netherlands, including several windmills, and is a very pleasant day out. I think Arnhem's about 100 km from Amsterdam, and I know you can get to the museum easily by a combination of train and bus.

Also, there actually are still a few windmills in and around Amsterdam itself. At least one is visitable: the "Molen van Sloten," on the westaern outskirts of the city.

Kinderdijk with its 19 mills is certainly one of the best sites for windmills in the Netherlands, but if you are in Leiden, the de Valk windmill is right in town and houses a fascinating museum. Leiden and Haarlem make a nice day trip from Amsterdam.

One of the best places to see windmills as well as traditional farms and houses is the Openluchtmuseum (Open Air Museum) in Arnhem, which is easily done in a day from Amsterdam. It's an interesting alternative to Zaanse Schans.

The city of Schiedam has a number of very tall mills right in the middle of town.

If you go to Keukenhof there is a beautiful windmill on the backside of the garden property that you can go into.

Ah chasing windmills! Kinderdijk is the best grouping, in a verdant marsh setting, albeit heavy industry looms in the distance. Zaanse Schans has a host of mills too and is different in that it's more an open-air park to which typical old Zuider Zee area buildings have been relocated. Z Schans a snap to get to by train from Amsterdam (to Koog Zaandijk (?sp), about 20 mins from a'dam, then several block walk or probably bus. Without car getting to Kinderdijk would seem difficult - as though it's near Rotterdam, it's isolated from it by a busy waterway - i guess take the bus from Rotterdam to the ferry and ferry across to walk or bus to Kinderdijk. Kinderdijk makes a wonderful bike outing as bike paths go through the mills; rent one at the Gouda train station and pedal the 10 miles or so to Kinderdijk on Holland's terrific bike paths through the quintessential rural Holland, dikes, cows and flat canal-laced fields. I may have miles off a bit. But i led bike trips for years through this area and it's not far. Kinderdijk is also near Delft and probably buses from there.