My last vacation with my wife and my grandson (nearly 6) surprisingly gave me the opportunity to explore an old wooden windmill, a so-called smock mill. A few years ago, I already was there, but wasn’t aware of the option, to tour the windmill. The souvenir shop held me away.

The windmill was initially built in 1706 and reconstructed after a fire in 1920/21. It’s still in use as a flour mill. In the basement of the windmill is a shop offering natural products as well as souvenirs. While in the shop, my grandson asked quite loudly (as kids of that age do), if he could go upstairs and see the inner parts of the windmill and the owner answered (instead of us), that it would be possible when paying an entrance fee and at least one of the adults would accomplish him. So, I’m glad, he was with us and talking that loud.

For a long, I wanted to visit an old windmill with my camera. It was fantastic to see, how everything was constructed. It was amazing to see all this old technology and that it remained the centuries and wars.

The windmill has 4 floors. All of them offer only very few free (unused) room to roam around. I even had to leave my backpack on the first floor to be able to climb up to the upper levels. While my wife and my grandson only claimed up to the second floor and were frightened to use the steep ladders further up, I made my way up to the top. Fortunately, no one else was there at the same time. The next visitors arrived on level 2 just when I came down again from level 3. In my image above, you can watch down the ladder connecting levels 2 and 3.

More of my images can be seen on my own blog.