DORDRECHT, NL: Open Monument Day 2015

In case you happen to remember, every year there is a weekend in September that is Open Monument Day, when over 4,000 "monuments" nationwide, not normally open to the public, are available to visit for free.

We already know where we're going next year (ha!) but this year, we decided to go to nearby Dordrecht, since King Alexander and Queen Maxima had chosen it for their King's Day visit in April.  It's only 25 km from where we live here in Gorinchem...and, yes, we have been there before, in 2010, for Dordt in Stoom.

It used to be that Open Monument Day was only on Saturday, but starting last year, it's now also on Sunday...the day we chose to go to Dordrecht.

First of all, Dordrecht is a harbor city that is an island, bordered by 4 rivers,

and is the oldest of the North and South Holland provinces, granted city rights in 1220.

Pay attention to that Grote Kerk = Big/Great Church.  (Wiki image)

Did you pay attention to the Grote Kerk in the aerial view?

We parked on the other side of a canal from it...but did not visit it that day,

having already seen it previously.

Notice the absence of a spire...because they ran out of funds in the day!

The main portal into the city from the Oude Maas river is near the Grote Kerk.

From there, as you'd guess, there are canals everywhere throughout the city.

We actually were on a mission that day, to see two of the "monuments" that caught our eye in our research but ended up catching 4 altogether:

1:  The Augustijnenkerk (The Augustine Church)

This was one of the unexpected  "accidents" of the day.

It used to be an Augustinian monastery from 1293, becoming a reformed church in 1572.

I fell in love with the bluish-green and red colors against the white walls and pillars.

2:  Atelier Gerhard Lentink

You could safely say this was our biggest "accident" of the day, 

the workshop of this wood sculptor in what used to be a Catholic boy's school from 1906.

I think our jaws were on the floor the entire time we were there.

These wood sculptures are beyond incredible.

Gerhard Lentink himself was present.

I bowed my "namaste" to him with tears in my eyes.

If you want to see more, check out this video that Astrid found.

3:  De Luthiers

Astrid really wanted to see this house of violin and guitar builders.

It was where the King and Queen had a violin made for one of their daughters.

Talk about a photo op.  Totally worth the stop.

4:  Rutte and Son Distillery

Believe it or not, this was our main mission of the day.

Friends of ours told us that Rutte & Zn had achieved an incredible honor worldwide:

two of their gins, a vodka and a jenever were voted the best in the USA.

 While Astrid and I aren't connoisseurs of such liquors, we wanted to take the tour.

There's always so much to see!

And, yes, we also got to taste, just to say we did it!

It was a fun way to end the day.

Of course, we were short of eyes in between our "monuments."

After all these years, Dutch architecture still amazes me.

As do the gable stones!

I never tire of them.

Or of the weathervanes.

You could say that "things" impress me, everywhere I look.

It's as it should be...because I love where I live!


As we returned to our car, this said it all!

And since I put it out there, we plan to visit the war prison in Breda next year, closed since 2014.

God willing and the creek don't rise, of course....

King's Day Celebration

On the heels of my own "Dutch celebration" last week, it's appropriate that this week we celebrated the King's 48th birthday.

It used to be the Queen's birthday, every April 30th!  But when Beatrix abdicated her throne in 2013, her eldest son, Willem-Alexander, became the King of the Netherlands, with his wife, Queen Maxima, at his side.  More on that later.  But the King's birthday is April 27th, so the big national holiday is now 3 days earlier than it used to be forever (Beatrix used her queen mother's birthday, thus 65 years between them).

Since the birthday was this past Monday, the Dutch used the entire weekend to celebrate.  Of course.  And one of the goodies that happened in Gorinchem, where we live, was...ta-da...the hand-turned organ grinders!

This is the collage I put up on Facebook, showing different organs with their owners.
(Any similarity to dogs and their owners???)

But what was fun to see was 2 or 3 grinders grouped together.

While one was playing, the other was getting ready for their next "grind."

Made lots of sense.  Saved the grinding arm, too.
(And, yes, we had on-n-off rain that day.)

You know the saying "Not my circus, not my monkeys," right?

Even organ grinders are being politically correct these days.

Are you fascinated by contraptions like this?

I think it would be quite fun to belong to an organ-grinder's society!

Speaking of which, look at Astrid go!
As soon as we approached this grinder, he immediately offered her the reins.
No one could have wiped that smile off her face, trust me.

And then he talked to her about his hobby...and gave her one of his CDs.
He said he was one of 6 German grinders who came to celebrate King's Day in our city.
Woo-Hoo.

A real catch for the kids of all ages!


And just for the halibut, here's one of the cutest organs of them all.
Look at those popping hats!  Who thought THAT one up, I wonder.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Actually, all the above happened on Saturday, April 25th, of the Big Birthday weekend.

Monday, April 27th, was the national holiday in honor of the King.  And that day, Astrid and I were glued to the TV for 3 hours, watching the Royal Family descend on nearby Dordrecht.  Every year this happens:  the Royal Family (including all the cousins!) picks a city to visit and that city puts on a show.

Here's a 5-minute synopsis of those 3 hours.

Did I mention that I am in love with the Dutch King and Queen!
What I should say is that I'm in love with Queen Maxima and their amazing love story!
She's Argentinian, so the Dutch Parliament said if Alexander married her, he couldn't be king.
To which he said he didn't care what happened because he would marry her no matter what. 
The entire country fell in love with her.  Even Parliament (who obviously changed their mind)!
She's the first Dutch queen consort since 1890.

That's what they looked like on Monday (above).

Look at them on Willem-Alexander's coronation day, April 30, 2013.
That's the former Queen Beatrix, his mother, left-center.
(all images above and below are from Google Images)

They could even pass for a "normal" family with their 3 girls, right?
The princesses are Amalia (11), Alexia (9) and Ariane (8).

See what I mean about King's Day celebration.
I can hardly wait to see and experience it next year.

Dordt in Stoom

...or in other words, Dordrecht in Steam = Dordrecht Steam Festival, the largest of its kind in Europe, just 13 miles from where we live here in Gorinchem, Netherlands. That's where we went by train on Saturday, May 30th. By train because, with the thousands of visitors expected (250,000), there'd be no place to park. It was a no-brainer.

We knew there'd be so much to see! Because we went by train and were already at the train station, we decided to first find the steam train and take our ride on it to the model train pavilion too far away for walking. It was part of the full-ticket 'Steam circuit Dordt' pass so we had to think ahead for how we'd schedule our day.

We were early and had to wait for the steam train to arrive at the station from its back-n-forth trip to the model train pavilion. The anticipation was intense because both Astrid and I wanted to get pictures of the train puffing its way in. We and everybody else! How fun when we finally saw it coming. After lots of pictures, we hopped on and took the 15-minute ride to the model train stop. (And if you guessed the bottom-left photo above is a model, you're right.)


There's something about model trains, and what's funny about that is both Astrid and I are mesmerized by them. So it made sense that our first order of business was to check out the pavilion. I have always loved things in miniature and think I must have made the buildings and scenery set-ups in a past life. Brother Nelson had his own model train set eons ago, which is still in my subconscious, I'm sure. (Did you notice the sulky race horses in the collage above...just like the real one from my last post!)

Before and after going into the model-train pavilion we strolled around all the vintage trucks parked for viewing. They don't run on steam, of course, but they were there just for the halibut and added nostalgia to the scene. They deserved to be there. And they led the way to the river bank where we then picked up our steam boat ride to the Dordrecht city center on the Merwede River...the same river that runs by our city Gorinchem.


Talk about all the stops and whistles. They really did it up big, bringing back the memories of a by-gone day. If I counted right, there were 23 steam ships from all over The Netherlands, all with their own names and all blowing off steam. And all were in working order, taking visitors up and down the river. The top-left contraption, by the way, is a lightvessel/lightship...a ship that is a lighthouse. We didn't take the time to tour it but at least I got a picture of it. (And did you find Astrid in the collage?)


When we got off the steam boat, we were at the harbor in the midst of the main crowd of the city-center hoopla. That's where all the steam tractors strutted their stuff, some like whirling dervishes spinning their gears. Most of them were miniature tractors, like the one Astrid is photographing above. This video shows you how cute they are when they work.

By then we were totally ready for a late lunch and started to walk through the city center away from the beaten path. We had a friend's apartment-warming party to attend that evening back at our senior-living complex and decided we had seen what we wanted to see at the festival. So after lunch, we wandered our way back through the streets towards the train station. Unbeknownst to us, we ended up on the main run of the old-timer buses driving visitors to the station. And since that was also part of our pass, we hopped on and enjoyed our ride back to the train...in total vintage style.

Steam-powered trains, ships, and tractors. Vintage trucks. Old-timer buses. Model trains. It may not be everybody's thing but Astrid and I were like kids in a toy shop. It happens only every other year and only in Dordrecht, so we felt lucky that it happend this year and, as I already said, just 13 miles from home. How does life get any better than that!

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Update on Nicholas: A week after his attack by the 3 pit bulls, he is like his normal self, according to Amy. He even still likes dogs, he says! Amy says the owner surrended all his dogs which were then put down. He was also cited in violation of the leash law and not being proactive with the rabies shots. We truly believe Nicholas' healing is due to the "collective consciousness" of all of you who cared and prayed. Thank you.