This past weekend was “National Windmill Day” or Nationale Molendag in the Netherlands. The approximately 900 windmills in the Netherlands were open for people to visit, and many people made a day of it!
By coincidence, Riccardo and I had lunch at one of my favorite restaurants in Beek which is right in front of a windmill. Because I had never gone in despite the many times we had eaten at this restaurant, we decided to explore the windmill. It was a great experience to see the inside of the windmill and the mechanisms used to mill. I was a bit scared because of the light movement I could feel with the wind, but I was brave and worked with my fear.
A family that was also visiting the windmill commented that they had spent the morning visiting all the windmills in the area and would continue to do so for the rest of the day. A friend from Den Haag was surprised to see long lines to visit a windmill in Leiden. It seems that the Dutch (and tourists as well) enjoyed the windmill weekend!
Inside the windmill, we saw many poems related to windmills. I am a big poetry/literature nerd and found this incredibly interesting because…who writes poems about windmills! I don’t say it to criticize, but more as a sign of surprise. I would have never thought of writing a poem about windmills!
If I were to write a windmill poem or a molengedicht, I think it would go something like this:
Mensen uit diverse landen willen komen
Om naar molens en polders te kijken
Want Nederland is het molenland!
Van Rotterdam tot Friesland,
Van Zeeland tot Groningen
Molens zijn hier en daar en in het hele land!
Maar de beste molen voor me is een kleintje dichtbij
Met colas en biertjes en tostis en bitterballen
De Beek molen is de mooiste volgens mij!
Clearly I am no poet, but this is my lame attempt at the molengedichten. What would your molengedicht say?
