European holiday....Christmas Eve sight seeing.

Although it was cold, and threatening rain today, we still decided to head off to Leiden again on the bus, with the intention of seeing the De Valk Windmill museum, the inside of the Pieterskerk , and the pilgrim Museum.

Just to be on the safe side, we took a couple of borrowed umbrellas with us.

The windmill museum in the past has been a working mill, dating from 1743. It has seven floors, with the original house of the miller still maintained.
We climbed all seven, venturing out onto the reefing stage, where it was blowing an absolute gale.









The confidence of youth..there is no way I would have stood there!





The kitchen was reminiscent of the kitchen I remembered from my very early childhood. It actually had a sink made of stone.



The stairs on the upper levels were almost perpendicular, and could only be negotiated down by coming backwards.

I actually felt safer coming down backwards than climbing up.

By the time we had toured the windmill and made our way back to central station to top up our chipkaart, and have some takeaway for lunch, it was pouring!

We decided to catch the bus to our next port of call, which was the Pieterskerk . Unfortunately, once again, it was closed.

With that, and the fact that the umbrellas were not completely covering us from the rain, we decided to find our way back home. The bus was crowded, and wet. We are managing the transport system quite well now, and don't need to walk back to Leiden Central station to catch our bus.





A quick trip to the Winkelhof to buy our own umbrellas, and some filling for Lily's knitted bear, still in the construction stage.

A very different Christmas Eve here in the Netherlands, it does not seem like Christmas at all.

Location: Leiderdorp,The Netherlands