Following our cruise to the British Isles & Iceland we’ve begun making our way across Europe with our sights set on landing in Georgia at the end of July. Our first stop was Brielle, about 100 kilometers / 60 miles southwest of Amsterdam in the province of South Holland, where we connected with my step-sister and her husband.
Laura and Boyd’s retirement plan, much like ours, involved leaving Canada to explore the world. Rather than bouncing from one Airbnb to the next like we are, they’ve opted for a base from which to travel, and as former boat owners from the coast of British Columbia they chose a water base.
They have a terrific YouTube channel showcasing life on their 1927 Dutch canal barge, and are currently moored in the small picture-perfect town of Brielle.
Here’s Boyd’s first video introducing their life on Flat Bottomed Girl:
Brielle (Bree-la) whose name is believed to derive from the Celtic word broglio meaning “closed area” was a fortified seaport that received city rights in 1306 CE and enjoyed a thriving trade with the Baltic countries.
I think I sometimes overuse the word “charming” but there really is no better descriptor for Brielle – narrow, winding streets, lined with medieval buildings, one of which was an old stable that operated as a flour mill from 1575 onward. The large mill was turned by horse power, the rumps of which carved an 8 cm / 3-inch recess into the wall as they continuously rubbed against it over the years. The Kont van het Paard (The Horse’s Ass) is now a restaurant serving the most succulent, fall-off-the-bone ribs I’ve ever eaten.
While Laura and Boyd’s barge is the ideal setup for two people it would be a little squishy for four adults so we stayed one town over in Oostvoorne, another pristine Dutch borough. It was a short 15-minute bus ride between the two towns, or at least it was when we caught the bus in the afternoon. After sharing stories over a lovely dinner and just a few glasses of wine we set off for our current home just after midnight. Whenever we are on public transportation (or in taxis) Howard always follows the anticipated route using Google Maps to ensure we’re heading in the right direction. After passing the first couple of stops along the route the bus started to deviate from the expected path. We thought perhaps at night the route changed slightly and we weren’t particularly concerned until it became clear we were getting further and further away from Oostvoorne and closer and closer to Rotterdam! At the next stop, Howard popped up to the front to ask the driver what happened to the Oostvoorne stops – thankfully you’re allowed to speak to Dutch bus drivers, it’s taboo in Italy. Apparently, there was road construction that night and the bus couldn’t follow its regular route so bypassed those stops, continuing along the main motorway!!!! The driver’s offered solution was to let us off at this stop (in the middle of nowhere in the pouring rain), he would radio ahead to the bus that would be along shortly going back towards Brielle and let that driver know we needed to be dropped at the nearest stop to Oostevorne. That’s what we did and after the subsequent 25-minute walk, we were safely ensconced in our B&B shortly after 1 am.
Laura and Boyd were exemplary tour guides during our short visit, driving us around the area.
About an hour east of Brielle is the village of Kinderdijk. Historically just one big peat bog, this fertile soil was hugely appealing to folks looking for a home outside the growing Dutch trading posts, they just had to figure out a way to keep the water at bay. Beginning in the 11th century, haphazard dykes kept the polders (low-lying land reclaimed from the sea) relatively safe. Then, in the 12th century, windmills made their first appearance and in addition to housing families provided power to pump water out to higher elevations.
In the thirteenth century an innovative concept was introduced – district water boards, a collective effort through which all residents worked together to keep all of the polders dry. This worked well with the occasional breach, the most significant of which was in 1421 when the Saint Elisabeth flood burst through the dykes, drowning thousands of people. Over the next several centuries trial and error improved the district water boards’ systems, including pumping water into holding basins where it would be available during droughts. Kinderdijk, the Child’s Dyke, which supposedly got its name following the Saint Elisabeth flood when an infant in its cradle was found alive floating on the flood waters, is the largest collection of historic windmills in the Netherlands (there are approximately 1,200 windmills throughout the country). The nineteen mills in Kinderdijk were constructed between 1738 and 1740 and are all still operational – in fact, they are the backup system should modern equipment in the pumping stations fail. In the mid-1800s steam-powered pumping stations were built to augment the power of the windmills and those stations were upgraded to diesel in 1924. The ability to revert back to steam, however, proved critical during Germany’s occupation of the Netherlands in WWII when the Germans expropriated all the diesel reserves. The 800-acre mill network of Kinderdijk, which lies roughly 2.5 meters / 8 feet below sea level, is a UNESCO heritage site exemplifying the Dutch contribution to water handling technology.
Crisscrossed by a series of picturesque canals (surprise, surprise), the small city of Delft is roughly a 45-minute drive from Brielle.
While it was largely spared from damage during the Second World War, Delft certainly had its share of disasters in the Middle Ages. With wood being the construction material of choice at that time, only a handful of buildings predate the Great Fire of 1536. Rebuilding with stone unfortunately wasn’t able to withstand the “Delft Thunderclap,” in 1654 when a gunpowder store exploded destroying much of the city, though luckily many of the inhabitants were away, attending a nearby market. It is a lovely city in which to spend an afternoon wandering the cobblestone streets.
Traditionally breweries were the city’s main source of income with textile production following later. The two industries proved to be incompatible. Runoff from the textile industries polluted the canal water upon which the breweries relied, and the quality of their product suffered. While the city administrators did their best to ameliorate the situation in favour of the breweries, by the end of the sixteenth century the beer industry was in steep decline. A different commodity would take its place.
In 1602, the Dutch East India Company was formed with Delft being selected as one of their six home ports. Chinese porcelain was an early import, and Delft artisans began emulating those pieces, developing the distinctive blue and white pottery known as Delftware. By the mid-17th century civil unrest in China was disrupting trade and Delftware production skyrocketed. Off to Germany!
