Leiden

 By calendar days we are half way through the bicycle tour. By distance we are a bit short of the half way mark. Still we are taking a day off and exploring Leiden. The city over the ages is best known for the Leiden University. It was founded by William of Orange in the 1575 as the only other university in the region was under Spanish control. You may have heard of at least two former faculty… Albert Einstein, and Enrico Fermi. Strangely the manuscript for one of Einstein theories was found in one of the university libraries in 2005 80 years after it was published. For those wondering it was on the “Bose-Einstein Condensate” which is about the gaseous state of bosons at near absolute zero…. 

It must be rush week or something on campus because today at around 4 in the afternoon there were several hundred college students all dressed in similar outfits. Men in black pants white shirt and black suit coat with tie. Women were in black skirts, white blouses and black suit jackets. They were led by a guy walking with a large banner with some logo we think was associated with the university.. Strange.

We toured one of the Windmills nearby this morning. At one time there were over 10,000 windmills in the Netherlands, currently there are only 950. They were used for milling flour, saw mill operation, water lifting out of low lands, and for various other things such as grinding, powdering, pulping(paper production) The wind mill we visited De Valk(the falcon) was a flower mill. It was originally built of wood, torn down, rebuilt, torn down again and finally made of brick. The base housed the two families that owned the mill.

The Miller would adjust the blades of the mill to best capture the wind with the large wheel. Also depending on the wind speed they would reef the blades with fabric to increase or decrease the amount of air captured by the blades. 

The millstones would grind the grain to make the flour. The bottom stone was fixed, only the top stone would move.

The turning motion of the drive shaft would turn the large gear system that would engage the millstone.

The windmills were located on the city Ramparts to give the additional height to catch the wind. A short walk from the windmill led us to the old city Gate.

In the area behind where I am standing was where the gallows was located for all public executions. Currently no gallows… otherwise there would have been a picture!

Later we hiked the short distance to the old Citadel in Leiden(Burcht van Leiden) It was originally built around 1000. At one time there was an inner keep but the citadel and inner keep were abandoned when the city had grown to a size that it no longer made sense to use the structure.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing.(and catching up on the Blog.) We were sick of eating out and so found a grocery store and bought some bread, ham, and cheese for a simple sandwich. 

Tomorrow is on to Wormer. Will have to look up the meaning of that town…

Peace,

Dale and Ila