THORN, NL: The White Village

We're finally at the end of our two-day trip that took us to Valkenburg, NL (Christmas market), Lanaken, BE (Jo Myns sculptures), Maaseik, BE, and now Thorn, NL, the last week of November, 2013.

You know us.  We like to pack a wallop!

Thorn is known as "The White Village" in the Netherlands, with only 2K+ inhabitants.

See what I mean?!  It's brick painted white = whitewashed.

The "eyes" of the village watch over you everywhere you go.

BTW, the Dutch language does not have the "th" sound.

That means Thorn is pronounced TOR-en, with 2 syllables.

Does that confuse you as much as it does me?

When we first entered the village, we passed a doorway to what looked like a junkyard.

Wrong!  It was a huge haven full of antiques...about 35+ years worth, we found out.

Are you looking for something to add to your collection?

Surely the man who owns the place has it!

And if that isn't enough, he has an assortment of rare pigeons for you.

He's been collecting them for as long as the antiques, taking them over from his dad.

Some of them give new meaning to being "all puffed up!"

And on that note, we suddenly had an appetite for koffie and a bite of something.

I had the rice-pudding tart and Astrid had the apricot tart.
Usually we share but we both stuck to what was in front of us, with no complaints.  OMG!

It so happens our café was across from the Abbey Church, which was one of the main reasons why we chose to visit Thorn in the first place.

We had already seen it from where we had parked our Granny Towanda (green car)...

...as well as elsewhere throughout the small village.

It's actually smack-dab in the middle of the village, with cemetery included.

BUT...even though it was open, you can't get in for free!  

What a disappointment until we discovered this particular abbey had been run by women.

So we HAD to go in...and quickly paid the €3/person entrance fee.

This abbey was founded in the 10th century as an imperial abbey for the Roman Empire,

led by an abbes and a convent of twenty noble ladies.

In Thorn, only women with the most impeccable pedigree were accepted.
They dwelled in luxury in the white houses, being attended by servants and owning property. 

If they married, they left.

 The village of Thorn exists because of this church.

 In the crypt under the chancel are tombs and the mummified remains of a a male and female cannon.

So many nooks and crannies.  So much history.

Don't you wish you could read all languages!

Some languages, like art, can be read by almost everyone.

And even though I was still on the wrong F-stop on my new camera (camera language), 

most of the images came out good enough to preserve for posterity.

[Once we got back home, I found out how to change the setting, remember?]

So, that does it...almost 2 months later!  

Hopefully some things are worth waiting for.

GOUDA, as in The City

So, after we left the cheese shop, loaded with our bag of cheese from the last post...we continued our photo hunt of Gouda, the city of 71K inhabitants. Actually, it took us two seconds to figure out we could leave the bag at the shop and come back for it later. Which we did.

Gouda the city is surely most known for its cheese. Duh. But it's also known for its clay smoking pipes with looong stems, stroop/syrup waffels (both of which I didn't take pictures...my bad!) and for its candles:

Gouda kaarsen (= candles) are considered to be the cream of the crop.
They're made of stearine/natural wax with a special prepared wick, with hardly any soot or smoke,
almost never dripping and burning for hours.

And that reminds me of what Gouda is also known for, it's famous Stadhuis, one of Holland's oldest Gothic city halls, built between 1448 and 1450:

This magnificent structure sits in the middle of Market Square, as seen here from above.
At Christmas time, Astrid says all the windows are lit with Gouda candles.
Definitely on our list to see this next holiday season.


Speaking of the Stadhuis, later in the afternoon as we ate lunch on the square, I was able to zoom in on this wedding party just coming out. You may recall that weddings in the Netherlands take place at the city hall,
as ours did here in the city where we live.


On the same market square, behind the Stadhuis and just a couple buildings from where we ate, is Gouda's Waag (= weighing house), built in 1668 for weighing goods to levy taxes.
It is now a national monument.

As happens in most of these Dutch iconic cities, there's always one big church that stands out from all the others, and that would be Sint Janskerk:

A UNESCO monument known for its stained glass windows, the church was built in the 15th-16th centuries, dedicated to Gouda's patron saint, John the Baptist.
The church was open to the public for an entrance fee (€3,50 each, as I recall) but no cameras allowed.
Sorry, NO. We'll look online. Sometimes we're cheapskates, just for the principle of it.


...but as you know by now, that doesn't keep us from walking all around to see what we can outside.
I'm a glutton especially for such arched walkways attached like this.


I'm also a glutton for seeing such a steeple while out-n-about town and knowing whose it is!

Since we're in the vicinty of the grote kerk (big church), let's cross the street to Gouda's history Museum....

...with another archway. I love those walk-throughs...
(notice Sint Janskerk so close behind once you're inside the courtyard)


...and all the gevelstenen (= gable stones) inside the courtyard.
We didn't enter the museum proper but enjoyed the inner courtyard as its own museum.

The other church that sticks out like a sore thumb while you're out walking around is the Gouwekerk, over by the vismarkt (= fish market):

In the bottom right-hand images (above) you can see the 2 pillared structures on each side of the canal (with the church in the background). In days past the fishing boats would pull up alongside these open-air structures and unload their catch for market selling.

On the way to the vismarkt, by the way, we passed the following bridge being restored:

...and as we passed it...


...LOOK AT WHAT ASTRID CAPTURED! (Rated R)
The top row was the foreplay, the bottom row 'the act.'
HA! It was a real 'quickie!'

How can you ever beat Mother Nature!


Well, we try, don't we. Look at this bit of whimsy. Is this, too, foreplay???

Now, change gears, if you can, and check out these two windmills:

't Slot (= the Lock) was built in 1832 as a grain mill.


De Roode Leeuw (= the Red Lion) was originally built in 1727, also as a grain mill.

And to tell you why we love these photo hunts so much....

...just before we rounded the corner to see the Roode Leeuw windmill, we spied this sewing machine outside in a yard, suffering from the elements. As we started taking pictures of it, this gentleman, so seemingly hungry for conversation, came out to tell us all about it. He even offered it to us...if we wanted it!

And then, just to the left of the windmill, there on the canal where we had first seen the mill from afar after first parking....

...life as they know it on the canals of The Netherlands!

Bid yourselves tot straks, now, to Gouda....

...a city of so much of what I love, like more gevelstenen (= gable stones).
You can actually see the whole shootin' kaboodle here on the Dutch database.


Enough impressions for a lifetime of enjoyment.

Gouda, the city. I have a feeling I barely got started (and you thought this was long!).