April 5

Day 2: Thursday: Kinderdijk

Yesterday was a L-O-N-G day with the travel, transport to the ship, walking tour and then dinner. We thoroughly enjoyed our meal (NOTE: at the end of the cruise I will develop a "Cruise Food" page where you can check out all our gourmet meals!) and we were finally done & headed to the room a little after 9 pm. But, at our organizational meeting prior to dinner one topic was the excursions. Because we'd been to Kinderdijk on our first European River Cruise with Viking, we wanted to do something a little different so we opted for the "Cheese Farm" excursions. Well, we discovered that this trip would begin at 7:45 am! Which meant to get breakfast we would need to be up by 6:30 am. No rest for the weary traverlers! We both were out shortly after our heads hit the pillows and then up with the alarm for breakfast. We had a light breakfast from the buffet as the ship docked in Rotterdam to let us off to board the bus to the cheese farm. Those not taking our trip would continue on the ship down to the windmills where we'd catch up with them. A couple of interesting things we learned on the bus ride this morning (for those who've not done a Viking cruise we LOVE how educational the trips, excursions, and guides are!). First, the river/water traffic ALWAYS has priority over the land traffic, even a major highway at rush hour. So it's not at all uncommon to be late and so the Dutch use the expression "the bridge is open" to always explain why they are late, even it it's a little white lie :) Secondly driving is exceptionally closely monitored. Every few miles there is an electronic speed sign (as the speed limit flucuates based on traffic flow) and each sign measures how fast you've gone from the previous sign. You could be cruising along thinking how quickly you are going only to discover later that you've piled up a significant number of tickets - separate ones for each passing sign! Finally, using your mobile phone is a HUGE "no no" as this can lead to up to two years in jail if you are on your phone while driving - YIKES! And one last tidbit....our guide told us that one of the favorite past-times of the Dutch is "ditch jumping." There are so many ditches (for water management) that seeing if you can jump over it is a very popular thing to do. Obviously mostly for children, but taken seriously enough that the Dutch people have made many attempts to persuade the Olympic Committee that it should be an Olympic sport!

Good morning Rotterdam!

Who would have thought that cheese-making would be so interesting! The farm we visited is family owned and run and has been in the family for many generations. Everything is done here and we enjoyed that aspect of the stop. We also enjoyed that it was not a "tourist trap" where there buses lined up.....it was OUR trip where we got to go inside Dutch culture. So interesting how they make the cheese. Did you know that you can only make cheese from sour milk? So they intentionally get it sour and then separate it out..... 2 1/2 gallons of milk to produce on pound of cheese! Then the cheese is soaked for three days in brine water. Sometimes spices are added to the water, but sometimes not. You can see the cheese wheels being pulled out of the water below. This particular farm won not one but THREE national awards for it's cheese last year! And all the cheese, much like wine, is dated - it can be kept up to two years. And the "true cheese lover" will order different ages of cheese for various recipes.

Following the cheese tour we drove about twenty minutes to the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Kinderdijk Windmills. Let me tell you something....the forecast was for temperatures near 40 and it was every bit of that. While it wasn't that cold, temperature wise. It was also overcast so no sun to warm you and the wind was REALLY gusty - so much so that it almost blew my hat off several times and blew Kim's off. So the "feels like" temperature had to be in the low 30s. Still, the windmills were amazing.

We returned to the ship and had our mandatory safety drill and then lunch. We met two new couples and were at lunch for a good two hours or more.Three things worth mentioning here. First, a BIG thanks to our travel agent Nancy Nelson who provided us with the beverage package. Because the wine & beer is free at your meals we'd typically not drink enough to benefit. But Kim has upgraded to her favorite wine which would not have been available and I like the blended wines. On past Viking cruises they have had these but not here, so I would have been without "my wine" - although I do enjoy a good white wine. Still, thanks Nancy! Second, without prompting, every one of the people we've met have raved about Viking in the same way we do. The exceptional service, the friendliness and how you are treated. And finally, we've met so many interesting people, already. The two couples we met at lunch today seemed particularly friendly and the women have immediately taken Kim into the card-playing circle! Good times.

After lunch the afternoon was spent cruising down the river. If you've not been on a river cruise, they come highly, HIGHLY recommended. After our first one or two I would have said I don't have a preference between big ship ocean cruising or small ship river cruising. But I'm definitely down on the side of the river cruise now. Cruising, in general is such a wonderful way to cruise (we think) - unpack once and see the world! But the allure of the intimacy of the small guest numbers (less than 200) and sailing right into the towns is just beyond compare. Tomorrow we will be in Cologne, Germany....the last stop of this adventure that we've experienced previously.