Alkmaar Windmill - Molen van Piet

Today we cycled the 56 km from Haarlem to Alkmaar. We back tracked on our route into Haarlem then went north initially on the fort trail. A ring of low forts were built around Amsterdam at the end of the nineteenth century into the twentieth century with the idea that if an enemy attacked the forts could act as a defensive point while the army flooded the land around Amsterdam making moving an army impossible. In the end The Netherlands was neutral in the first world war and surrendered after four days in the second world war with barely any fighting as the Luftwaffe bombed Rotterdam to rubble - the Dutch didn't stand a chance...

After leaving the fort trail - most of them were closed to visitors and there wasn't much to see - we wended our way to Alkmaar where we arrived a little early at our bed and breakfast. The couple were very nice and the room was huge and light, with a massive bathroom!

After changing we cycled to the nearby supermarket for provisions and then into town to have a wander. Alkmaar was nicer than Haarlem in the same way that Haarlem was better than Amsterdam. The town is very pretty, more canals and Dutch architecture, but virtually no foreign tourists and everything was clean and there wasn't any lingering stink in the air.

Today's back blip is an actual windmill. We've actually seen a load of these and their modern high-tech versions all over the place, but this was the first one we could get a good photo of with good light. This one was having work done it, which I cropped out, but it was rather impressive the later afternoon light. Anyone who says wind turbines are noisy is an idiot - my rental bike makes more noise than a wind turbine...