Rhine Cruise Day 2: Kinderdijk, Netherlands - July 4th, 2025
We took the Viking Rhine Getaway cruise from Amsterdam in the Netherlands to Basel in Switzerland. In our Amsterdam post, we covered boarding the Viking ship Gersemi on Day 1 (Amsterdam, Netherlands - June 29th to July 3rd, 2025). This post covers our first full day on board, Day 2, as we stopped in Kinderdijk to tour the windmills.
Our ship left Amsterdam during the night and arrived at Kinderdijk early in the morning. The Kinderdijk windmills are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The windmills date from the early 18th century. Although they don’t pump water into the canals anymore, the windmills are still in working order.
Friday we got up early. We had a tour starting at 8 am. Instead of going to the dining room for breakfast, we had the continental breakfast that was available a little earlier in the Aquavit terrace at the end of the lounge. We didn’t need a lot of food anyway.
We booked the Kinderdijk vintage barge tour. It was the only optional tour we reserved on the whole cruise. For the rest of the excursions, we opted for the included tours. There was always one included excursion every day. The included walking tour of Kinderdijk would have been equally enjoyable, but we booked the barge because we thought Kris would enjoy that better. Kris was on our minds as we enjoyed the tour.
First we walked over to the barge from where the ship was docked, following our tour guide who gave us wonderful information about how the windmills in the area were used to pump the water from the land into the canal. Most of the Netherlands is below sea level, so keeping the water pumped out to make the land more usable was always a constant struggle.
We rode the vintage barge down the canal to one of the furthest of the Kinderdijk windmills. There a miller explained how the windmills worked and showed us how he can brake and stop the blades, turn the blades to face the wind, and put out the sails on the blades. He can vary how much of the blades are covered by sails, depending on how much wind there is. The inside of the windmill was furnished with items from the 1950’s, when the windmill no longer was used to pump the water. The windmills were replaced by pump stations. There are 19 windmills at Kinderdijk that are owned and managed by Kinderdijk World Heritage Foundation, a non-profit group with over 250 volunteers.
The name Kinderdijk translates to “children dike”. Legend has it that right after the flood of 1421, a villager found a wooden cradle floating in the water. A cat was trying to keep the cradle in balance and afloat, protecting the baby who was quietly sleeping inside the cradle.
We were back on the ship and set sail around 10:30 am. We hung out on the sun deck. Ann walked a couple of miles around the walking track on the sun deck. It took almost 13 laps to complete a mile. Also on the sun deck is a couple of putting greens, a shuffle board court, and an herb garden. Guests are allowed to smell and pick the herbs if they’d like. The kitchen and bar on board use the fresh herbs.
Lunch lasted for an hour and a half. We first sat down with a couple from Miami. When they left, another woman joined us. Ann went light for lunch, having the Cobb salad along with the chocolate mousse for dessert. Keith had the red bell pepper soup, a Cuban sandwich and the caramel sundae.
In the afternoon, the captain gave a nautical presentation. He talked about how he became a captain, described the different systems on the ship, and how navigation works along the river. After the talk, we got a tour of the wheel house. The wheel house is on a scissor lift so it can be lowered when going through the locks or under low bridges.
At 5:30 pm, was more live piano music. Then at 6:30 pm, they passed out hors d’oeuvres and glasses of champagne. It was the captain’s toast with all the head staff.
Dinner was again at 7 pm. We sat with two sets of couples from England, although one of them was originally from Ireland. We enjoyed our conversations with Richard, Bev, Chris and Jean. At 9 pm we went our separate ways. There was a movie quiz game in the Lounge, but we’re not big movie goers, so we opted to sit up and relax in the cool air up on the sun deck before turning in for bed.
Day one of our Rhine River cruise was complete. We were enjoying ourselves so far. The windmills at Kinderdijk were interesting along with the wildlife surrounding them. The small cruise ship, compared to the large Princess transatlantic ship we were on in March (Transatlantic Cruise: Part 1 of 2 - March 9th to 15th, 2025), made for a more intimate atmosphere where we were getting to know our fellow passengers as well as the crew.
Check out our related video: Rhine Cruise Day 2: Kinderdijk, Netherlands
(Ann)