02 March 2025

The 1963 Mill Tour

The winter of 1963 is remembered as one of the harshest in Dutch history. Frozen canals, a thick blanket of snow, and icy temperatures dominated the landscape. In Kinderdijk and the surrounding area, these extreme conditions led to a remarkable event: a Mill Tour for cars.

This Mill Tour was anything but ordinary. The ice was so thick and strong that it could support the weight of many cars. With a route winding for miles through the Alblasserwaard, Kinderdijk served as one of the checkpoints during this extraordinary journey.

A Winter Memory

In the photo, a five-year-old girl sits proudly on the hood of her grandparents’ car. That girl is the sister of one of our reception colleagues, and she shares her memories of this remarkable event: “From my grandparents’ house on Molenstraat in Kinderdijk, we could step right onto the ice. It was a winter tradition filled with memories of skating, sledding, and, most of all, being together,” she recalls.

Annet Louter, now 67 years old, still remembers the 1963 Mill Tour vividly: “There weren’t as many cars back then as there are now, so those who had one joined this special tour. My grandparents took part as well. What I remember most is the sound of the horses’ hooves from the sleighs gliding over the ice. As a child, I found that sound quite eerie.”

A Rare Sight

Although this unique Mill Tour was never repeated after 1963, it remains an iconic moment in Alblasserwaard’s history. There have been skating Mill Tours since then, but even those have become increasingly rare. The last official skating tour took place in 2012.

Still, the memories and images of these spectacular tours live on, and we continue to hope that one day, we might witness another extraordinary Mill Tour.