The Oudenbosch Basilica of Agatha & Barbara

In almost every post these days I mention that we have driven to a new city here in The Netherlands and have visited a church, among other things. What I haven't been explicit about is that almost all the churches we've seen have been Dutch Reformed or Lutheran churches. That is, Protestant. Unlike parts of Belgium and France to the south, Holland is not Roman Catholic.

So when we had the chance recently to visit the Basilica in Oudenbosch, 27 miles SW of us, we had quite the surprise. Modeled after St. Peter's Basilica in Rome (construction began in 1865 and was completed in 1982, over 100 years later), it represented everything "Roman Catholic."

The thing is, Oudenbosch is a village of only 13,000 people. Can you imagine this imposing structure in a city of that size? It still blows my mind.

When you enter the front door of the church, your eyes are immediately drawn all the way to the altar at the opposite end:

In some of these images, the altar is seen from the dome above, after climbing up to the "whispering gallery."

Speaking of which, when not drawn to the altar, the dome beckons:

Interestingly, everything we saw from the whispering gallery surrounding the dome was painted. It looked like mosaic tile but it wasn't. We guessed it made sense for having the look without all the expense.
[In the above collage, the bottom center image is not from the dome but from the altar.]

For those of you who grew up with Roman Catholic culture, iconography and architecture, this is surely "old hat." For me it is astonishing. All of it:

Lucky for me, I was able to find a YouTube video of this church, with much better images: The Oudenbosch Basilica of the Saints Agatha and Barbara:

Now I will make a simple/simplistic observation which I hinted at in my last post: We have visited only a handful of Catholic churches here in The Netherlands but Astrid agrees with me that all of them have seemed so much darker and "colder" than the Protestant churches we've visited. Maybe one of you can enlighten us? Is it marble vs. wood? Statuary vs. open spaces? Fewer vs. more windows? What is it?

**********

That same day-trip to Oudenbosch, we saw another delightful, artistic creation...in the form of this whimsical garden "statue:"

While we were photographing this car, the front door of the house opened and a gentleman came out to welcome us. Apparently this has become quite the tourist attraction (unbeknownst to us) and he asks people to send him their images once they get home. Yes, we were good and sent him ours. I bet he has quite a collection.

Also on this particular trip I was able to photograph 4 different water towers that we purposely went to find both coming and going to Oudenbosch. Astrid knows I'm "collecting" them to put together one day into a gigantic collage. But to whet your appetite, here's a peek:

Believe it or not, these are very plain compared to others I have "captured." They're almost as soulful as the windmills...though not quite.

And that brings me to one last thing (before I start tackling the Sail 2010 images!): it's my turn again today at Vision & Verb where I talk about Pleasing All the People All the Time, using the following image (from my last post):

Maybe you'll figure out what I'm gonna say before you get there?!