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.

MAASEIK, Belgium

Sometimes it's the little towns in between that can totally make my day, if you know what I mean?

In between our stop at Lanaken to see the Jo Myns sculptures (last post) and Thorn, to see the "white village" (coming up), we stopped in Maaseik, still in Belgium.  If I told you it had a shipload of gable stones, you'd immediately know why I loved it.

Remember, this was the last weekend in November before Sinterklaasdag on February 5.

So the jute Sinterklaas sacks were hanging everywhere as decoration.

Maaseik has a population of circa 25K but the inner city is like any other town square

where we spend most of our time.  See that curch steeple in the center image above...?

That's the Saint Catherine church, not far away from city hall (top-right and middle-left).

The steeples stand out like sore thumbs and always direct us.
The bottom-middle statue is of Maaseik's two favorite sons, the Van Eyck brothers,
painters from the 15th century.

Thankfully, the Saint Catherine church, from 1840, was open.

Do you know the significance of walnuts at the front of the church at Advent time?

How many times have we said these churches are the "museums" we visit.

Even if they are all varaitions on a theme, we try to see them all.

Remember, this is Roman Catholic country with lots of niches.

We don't see them where we live in middle Holland.

The one church we really wanted to enter was the Minderbroederskerk from the 1620s.

It was a Friar monastery in its day but was being refurbished while we were there.

That didn't keep us from walking around it, enjoying the autumn weather.

There were two interesting sculptures we saw, this one near the market square.

De Vloeëjekuning, The Flea King, is by Jan Praet from 1994, a carnival society initiative.

Don't you wonder what that is all about, especially with the tiny people/fleas climbing him???

 The other sculpture, Bokkenrijder, on the market square, is by Roland Rens from 2001, near the Maaseik library.  It reminds me of Don Quixote, tilting at windmills, except he's riding a bok (male goat).

But it was the gable stones of Maaseik that captured me the most:

As you know by now, some things for me never change...like the joy of finding gable stones!

After Maaseik, we drove to Thorn, 5 miles away back into the Netherlands,
(to be continued...)

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

On another note, it's my turn at Vision and Verb today, talking about a Dutch word
used to describe what happens at the New Year:  jaarwisseling.

Jaarwisseling means "turning the year" in Dutch.
See what that has to do with this burned-out church from Bolsward!