Windmill near Amsterdam, a Iconic Symbol of National Heritage

One dream that remained unfulfilled during my tour of Amsterdam is seeing a working windmill. Netherland is synonymous to windmills too, among various other things like tulips, canals, etc. Windmills are iconic symbol of Netherlands. A few centuries back there were around 10,000 windmills in this country.

These windmills are revered so much in this country that they observe a National Windmill Day It is on second Sunday of May every year! Today there are just 1000 of them left. I had read that some of them are open to public; definitely a visit to one of them would have been educational and fun.

Eight windmills stand tall in the heart of Amsterdam city. I couldn’t sight any, but I was lucky to get a glimpse of one windmill as we were approaching Amsterdam. We didn’t halt; I managed to capture a shot of the windmill as we zipped past the place.

Amsterdam windmill

Windmills were very important for The Netherlands, the very reason why and how a large part of the country exists today. Since a large part of the country is below sea level continuous drainage of water is a must for large scale claiming of dry land. Windmills pump water out of the lowlands back into the rivers beyond the dikes so that the agricultural land could be formed.

But ever since steam powered mills took over their role the windmills are on decline. The Molen de Otter, still in operation in Amsterdam, is also used for drainage. I am not sure if this the one, though I wish it is. The other purposes of windmill were sawing wood and crushing grains.

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