Day 4 - 14 December 2019

We had our breakfast at the IBIS hotel. It had a piano there and it was wonderful to be able to play some tunes on it. What a way to start the day.

The guide, Peter, came at about 915am and we set off, first for the Python bridge. As the name suggests, the bridge is python-like shape. As it suddenly poured, we didn’t manage to walk on the bridge. We merely took some pictures and left for our next destination.

Which was Hague, the governmental heart of Netherlands. We drove through the city and the guide explained to us the various government ministries of the Netherlands. We alighted at Binnenhof which is one of the government office. Beautiful architecture.

We also drove past the International Court of Justice, sometimes called the World Court, where International legal disputes submitted by the states are settled.

Our next destination was the Madurodam. The little boy in the dike story greeted us at its entrance. Madurodam is a miniature park which displays various Dutch landmarks. The kids saw a small futsal court and just went berserk as though it was the most fun thing to do in Madurodam. The excitement was short-lived as we got them to watch boring videos of the history of New Amsterdam (present day New York). We had our quick lunch at Madurodam before we continued our journey to the last and final tour spot of the day - the Kinderdijk.

Kinderdijk is lovely. It is an UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is a must-see if one is in Netherlands. The guide was friendly and enthusiastic. He shared with us the engineering aspects of it with so much passion. In a statement he made, he said,”Without windmill, there is no Holland.” Such, is the importance of the windmills to control flooding in the low-lying land.

We took a small boat to get to one of the windmill. However, the wind was so strong that our boat got swayed to the side of the bank. Not just once, it happened several times that we thought it was best to disembark at some point and walked. We got to the inside of the windmill and it was marvellous. Every detail of it was impressive.

Oh.. a story told to me by the guide. He shared with me that during the Nazis war time, the sails on the windmills were positioned in a certain way to signal and warn the people of impending Nazi raids. Simple act as such saved many lives as a result.

At the end of the tour, we were even treated to a free hot chocolate drink. What a fantastic end as we braved the harsh and cold weather.

We left Kinderdijk at about 440pm. The driver drove us to Premier Suites Plus Rotterdam. The room was bigger than the ones we stayed in Amsterdam and had a much better welcome feel to it.

We had dinner at Tai Wu (Cantonese restaurant) which was about a few minutes walk from our hotel. After 3 days of pasta and pizza and the like, finally some warm and familiar food to satisfy the taste buds.

We did some super-marketing at Albert Heijn and then went back to the hotel. We did some laundry. The washing machine and dryer were in Dutch and we had to use Google translate to help us figure out how to use it. Thankfully, it wasn’t that hard. We got the kids prepared for bed and then, after the laundry was done, we turned in for the night.