We went to the NEMO science museum, which is an interactive museum designed primarily for children and similar to the Exploratorium in San Francisco, in the morning.
The NEMO is the unusual green building. The Evangeline (our barge) is one of the large boats at the docks to the right – the Evangeline is the one with the orange trim.
Then we picked up a to-go lunch from a “spectacular” cafe. This was the last meal we would have to purchase for quite a while.
Since riding through the frenetic bicycle traffic in Amsterdam would be a difficult start to the tour, we all rode in the barge to an easier starting point.
Going under the first bridge to get out of the little harbor was immediately interesting – the flag pole on the front of the barge serves as a test to see if the pilot house on the rear will fit under bridges. There were only a few inches to spare.
We traveled out past the train station and through a number of canals with lots of drawbridges and one lock to a lake in a park where we received our bicycles and adjusted them.
Pancake Boat
We rode through the park and then to a farm with a restaurant and lots of goats. It was set up a bit like a petting zoo, and the goats had some fun stuff like overpass bridges to go between their barn and corrals.
We passed out into an agricultural area and onto some dikes, then we had a photo stop at the first windmill of our tour in Aalsmeer, which we learned is an “outside winder”.
There were thousands of windmills in the Netherlands until after World War II, when most of them were replaced with electric or other powered pumps, as well as the ones used for sawing and grinding. Finally people realized that the windmills represented the country, and about a thousand were saved. Many are now people’s homes, and a fair fraction can still be operated as a backup to the electric pumps, or to help them after severe storms.
We rode past an old water tower and an old fort near Kudelstaart, where the barge was now moored for the night.
After dinner we walked out from edge of the town to see the lake and some cows.
The sun finally went down a little after 10:00.
