On our first real Pre-tour day we did not see that many mills, as we had to travel a long way to the South West of the country. Somewhat back on the track I already drove the day before.
Ready to do some sightseeing from the bus. And this was interesting as we went back into time, to the days of haystacks, small farmhouses, little pieces of land full of potatoes, onions, etc… Here they grow the food that our grandparents used to eat.
Quite a lot of them posses several beehouses. Not the ones we know, that are made like little mountain huts (sic), but firm wooden cases are used to keep them in. There is not much spraying going on in the larger areas that are cov
ered with wildflowers. At least it is good to know bees are not killed in these parts of the world, but eventually time will catch up. But if they are smart, the people in charge I mean, they can avoid, in the future, all the mistakes we made in the modern world.
Again smooth check in at the Hotel Ferdinand were we will stay for the rest of the week.
Just over an hour later, we hop on the bus, to see the first mills in a village in the area.
Small mills, they look like garden sheds, or even cowsheds, and over the next days we will find out that some old ones are really used for that purpose.
But here in the village the mill is still in a working condition. 
The roof is covered with nice wooden shingles, bigger and thicker than those used on our own postmill roofs. Inside there is only one pair of stones. A lot smaller than these used in western watermills. An average diameter of 70 centimeters, three quarters of a yard. The beams of the hopper are all made in a very basic way. As is the way the stones are driven. Straight from the turbine wheel underneath the building. The turbine wheel gets its water via a bypass.
On Tuesday, after a good breakfast, we are setting out for our first real day of visiting mills. Over the next three days we will see quite a few of them. Always along streams that remind me of streams in the Ardennes,or even Wales. Every fifty meters you come across a mill, all build in a similar way, of course with minor differences, as shown in the many photographs that are taken at every stop.
I sometimes wonder what people in the small villages might think of our exploration team. Coming from all over the world, to look at sometimes derelict mills. For them the still working mills are a tool that they still use on a day by day basis, to grind corn or other combinations for making bread or tort, as I learned. Tort is a word everybody in our country would recognize, so it must be quite an old world, meaning, that the object it stands for is also that old.
