Apeldoorn and Vicinity, Netherlands

As I mentioned last post, it was a week ago that we went to Apeldoorn, 60 miles NE of us here in the Netherlands, for our first photo-hunt in over a month.

Guess what images I processed before anything else:

Yup. Weathervanes. I'm enamored of them.
All of these, except the one of the 2 gold horses, are outside of Apeldoorn.

Which is another way of saying it's the journey and not just the destination! Even though Apeldoorn was our 'hunt' of the day, we sure saw a lot before we got there...like these two water towers:

The one on the left is in Woudenberg, from 1937.
The one on the right is in Radio Kootwijk, from 1922.

In Woudenberg, our first stop, someone needed a potty break (not to mention any names), so since we always come prepared (when nothing else is available), how can you beat this:

I stayed behind with my camera, loving the Klompenpaden sign.
Klompen are wooden shoes, of course = wooden shoe paths.
Leave it to the Dutch!

Once back in the car, Astrid directed TomTom to Kootwijk, 15 km west of Appeldoorn, where we stopped for our prerequisite koffie met apeltaart. It's one of our coziest times of the day when we go out-n-about. Kootwijk was a typical medieval settlement for the 6th-11th centuries, so it was fun to walk around in the immediate vicinty to see something of the area....

...like this Dutch Reformed church from the 17th century.
Kootwijk means "sheepfold area," so the sheep sculpture makes wonderful sense.

Kootwijk is a farming community, with a nearby campground for summer vacationers.
Besides a group of kids biking through the village, we watched horseriders stop for koffie.
Gotta love the architecture, especially with the thatched roofs!

Then it was Radio Kootwijk, 5 km east of Kootwijk, with approx. 120 inhabitants. It was known as the "center of the world" for the Dutch in the 1920s because of its shortwave transmitter which connected them to their colony in the Dutch East Indies.

On a cloudy, overcast day, the main building appeared ominous and foreboding.
It was designed by a Dutch architect, Julius Maria Luthmann,
and was called 'Building A,' 'The Cathedral,' or sometimes 'The Sphynx.'
And yes, as you'd imagine, it was taken over by the Germans in WWII.


It's a perfect building for apocalyptic processing, don't you think?!

All of that before reaching our destination of Apeldoorn! Did I mention that my brother Jim married Wilma, whose parents came from Apeldoorn before moving to America in the 1940s. Wilma even has a sister buried in Apeldoorn, so I felt more connected to the city than usual.

We parked acrossed the street from the 1892 Grote Kerk, "one of the most important neo-Renaissance churches in the country, if not the most important."


It so happens that Apeldoorn is the city of one of Holland's royal palaces, which I'll get to in a minute.
The Grote Kerk serves as the "royal church," so it's not surprising that Queen Wilhelmina stands outside.
She was the Queen of the Netherlands from 1890 - 1948, longer than any other Dutch monarch.
"Outside the Netherlands she is primarily remembered for her role in World War II,
in which she proved to be a great inspiration to the Dutch resistance."


So when you walk into the "royal" church, you see the royal box!
It's at the back of the church (where you enter) and faces the altar.


As a Dutch Reformed church, it's wonderfully open and bright,
in stark contrast to the Roman Catholic churches we see.
Notice the chairs set up in front of the altar....


...look at how they are kept in order!
This is so typical of Dutch ingenuity. Ho-hum for Astrid.


And look at that high pulpit!
I wonder if it's used every Sunday, as well as the low pulpit?


We climbed upstairs behind the altar to find the organist who was playing from 2-4 p.m.
His tongue helped him play, of course, and was out more than in. :)

From the church we walked to city center to visit City Hall and the Saturday market, one of the biggest we've ever seen.

On the way, we passed a memorial to all the Canadians who helped liberate Apeldoorn
from the Germans during WWII. This is for you, Sham!

In the top-left image you see a corner of the very modern new city hall.
The old city hall is the typical backdrop to Saturday markets everywhere in Holland.


These are two different ladies in their klederdrachten = national costumes.
The top lady took off her jacket so I could take her picture. She was so proud.
This was the first time I have seen ladies in their klederdrachten at market!


From city center, we walked back to the car...with all shoes on...


...not seeing nearly as much as we wanted but enough to get a taste.

We had one more landmark to visit, before calling it a day...the Dutch royal Het Loo Palace ("The Woods Palace") which was the residence of Queen Wilhelmina till her death in 1962. Now it's a state museum. Queen Wilelmina is the grandmother of Holland's current Queen Beatrix.

Astrid stayed in the car while I took a few pictures of these Royal Stables.
That's all we saw of the much bigger palace site but at least we could say we had been there!
One day maybe we'll go back to see more?!


How's that for a way to end the day...in the parking lot of the Royal Stables.
It somehow seemed appropriate. And Granny Towanda did not mind!

Zeeland Province, Netherlands

Ready, get set, GO! And don't forget to put your seatbelt on.

A week ago Saturday, Astrid and I drove 310 km (192 m) roundtrip from home to Zeeland province in the SW corner of The Netherlands. See those brownish fingers in the bottom-left image (click to enlarge)? That's Zeeland with its many islands, much of which is below sea level. Our main goal was to spend time in two cities: first in Goes and then in Middelburg, the capitol of the province. But we also wanted to island-hop by way of the dijks and bridges, all part of the Deltaplan, one of the wonders of the world. Leave it to Dutch engineering. But this is one of the things they're known for: "God created the world but the Dutch created The Netherlands."

Goes was first and gave us one of our biggest treats of the day with its two-for-one main church: the Maria Magdalenakerk. If you Google for images of this church, it will show you two different churches that face each other across the street. On each church is the same name but one is the protestant church and the other is the Roman Catholic. We're sure there is more to the story but for now, these are the two churches from both viewpoints:

On the left, you see the RC church, taken at the corner of the protestant church.
On the right you see the protestant church, taken at the corner of the RC church.

First, the protestant church, with some more views.


And inside the protestant church.


Then across the street to the RC church (in the bottom left image you see both churches again).


And then inside the RC church.

It so happens we were there at just the right time because both churches were preparing for a musical festival. In the protestant church there was a small chamber concert going on, which we could have stopped to listen to for several minutes longer than we did. Both of us were in heaven. In the RC church, a choir was rehearsing. The acoustics in both places were out of this world. When we got home and talked about it later, we made the decision to make sure we find such a church nearby during the holiday season where we can listen to some of the great music of the world in such an environment...maybe Handel's Messiah!

That was Goes. We could have turned around and gone home right then and there! We even got some splendid sun for a few minutes, especially during our late morning koffie and appeltaart, sitting outside where we could see both edifices.

But on to Middelburg we drove, another 27 km further...the capit0l of Zeeland province.

Surely by now you get the picture of why we always visit the churches everywhere we go!
When you see a tower such as this from several vantage points around, you are drawn like a magnet. This is Middelburg's 1568 Nieuwe Kerk (New Church) with its Lange Jan (Long John) tower from the 14th century. Actually, it's an Abbey with 3 churches all connected by the Lange Jan tower.


What we usually do, once we get our bearings, is try to find any door of the church that's open. Usually it's the main entrance but not always. In this case we never got inside because there was a reunion going on for the Snoek family within the courtyards of the Abbey. The outside architecture for us was to die for, and since we had already been inside the churches of Goes, we took advantage of a horse of a different color altogether: the historic costumes (klederdracht)of the Zeeland province within the Abbey courtyards.


Astrid tells me that's gold and red coral...the wealth of the family, worn for the world to see.
These were the welcoming committee for the Snoek relatives from all over the world. And we just happened to get in on some of the action, lucky us.


That's when we found out the church wasn't open, but the Abbey's inner court with herb garden was, so we walked along the inner passages and went inside.


As you see, Astrid was in heaven...and so was I, watching her.

From the church/Abbey, we then headed to the market square for lunch...and this is where my mussels collage from last post comes in. Remember? That restaurant overlooked City Hall:

City Hall in Middelburg just happens to be the main building of Roosevelt Academy, ranked as the top liberal arts college in The Netherlands for the third time in four years since its inception in 2004. Not bad! Remember the collage of the college guys from my last post? Bingo. Their school.

After a great lunch, tummies full, we strolled around a bit more till we headed back to the car to continue our Zeeland island-hopping on our way home. There's always something to grab my attention, of course.

Then it started raining cats and dogs! Astrid was so upset that I didn't really get to see the Neeltje Jans Delta Park at one spot connecting two of the islands. Astrid calls it the 8th Wonder of the World...because it is! But I assured her it was perfectly okay we couldn't see it then because otherwise we'd never get home! And we now have a good excuse for going back.

We did see 3 more water towers this trip as well as a light house, so my collection is growing:

And two more special windmills...from Zeeland province:

See, I told you to put on your seatbelt! I'm such a glutton for these trips.

**********

Change gears now because this Friday Astrid and I will fly back to Atlanta where we will be till the 26th. School has its Fall Break next week, so we're both taking advantage of it. We'll take grandson Nicholas (now 10) to the Cumming Fair, carve pumpkins, celebrate birthdays and enjoy the North Georgia mountains, in the same cabin as last year. We'll also spend time with friends south of the city.

Hooray for vacations and breaks! I'll be keeping my next date with Vision & Verb on the 18th, a week from today, so I won't be absent. Just not in The Netherlands!