First, the picture below is "NieuweKerk", or "New Church". The name is somewhat misleading, however, because the New Church was actually built between 1351 and 1496! Yep, that's right, the "new" church was pretty much completed BEFORE Columbus set sail!
So, click on the picture above, and look closely at the people at the entrance of this church. See how small they are? The church tower is HUGE. It is over 108 meters high, which is the equivalent of a 35 story building.
Now here is the fun part: DJ and I climbed all 386 stairs to get to the top! You can see the spiral staircase on her blog. Once again, an old gray-haired, pot-bellied, 50-plus year-old geezer was able to climb stairs -- without medication! And here is the photo to prove it!
By the way, that's the OLD church in the background.
Of course, to be honest, we did take a couple of breathers along the way up. But hey, climbing stairs for half an hour is supposed to be good for you, if you believe those commercials on TV for the stairmaster. And believe me, these stairs were steeper than anything you'll find on the settings for the stairmaster!
The view from the top was stunningly beautiful. The picture below is the view looking down at the spot from which the very first photo on this post was taken. The building in the center of the photo below is the city hall, or stadshuis. The tower of the city hall is actually attached to the back of the building. That tower is actually part of a castle from the 1100's called "the Steen". The Steen burned and was demolished -- all except for the tower, which was preserved and made part of the new stadshuis when it was constructed in the 15th century. Incidentally, we ate lunch under one of the yellow tents to the right in this picture.
Of course, no trip to Holland would be complete without a photo of a real classic windmill, built in the late 1600's and today holding a pet food store in its base.
Like Amsterdam, Delft is criss-crossed with canals. Take a look at this following picture. Notice anything. Question: how the heck do people get out of their parked cars without falling into the canal? We never found out. Notice: no guardrails, either! They apparently don't have many lawyers in Holland.
We toured the Royal Deflt Ceramics Works, or Pottery factory, or Porcelain Works, or whatever you want to call it ("Fles" in Dutch). Below is a picture taken in the factory courtyard. Europeans love to eat and drink outside. Of course, there aren't very many bugs in Europe for some unknown reason. About the only bugs we ever see are the occasional bee here and there. So eating and drinking outside is very pleasant. And although it is mid-August, the temperature is a very comfortable 70 degrees at the heat of the day, and about 55 at night (Farenheit, of course).
As the Bopnopper pointed out, all of the Delft china and vases and figurines and tiles and stuff is all hand-painted before it is fired. Since DJ's photo is blurred, here is one of the painters at work.
The Royal Works pride themselves on custom pieces, one-of-a-kind, designed and manufactured for one and only one customer. For example, they do unique work for all the kings and queens of the Netherlands. They will do almost any kind of commission, too. Below is a work where the customer decided to let the factory display the wares for a few months before he takes possession of it, sort of as an advertisement for what the company can do. This is a full-sized (100% actual size) reproduction of Rembrandt's famous painting "NightWatch", done bit by bit on a bunch of little 6-inch-by-6-inch tiles, which when all put together, re-create the masterpiece. It is amazing.
Below is a panel which re-creates the famous Vermeer painting of the "Milk Maid". This is all on one panel, but is life-sized (100% the size of the original painting).
The "Milk Maid" is famous because it is the first painting of a common person... prior to this painting, most of the Dutch Masterworks were of royalty or rich people or of religious subjects, or posed portraits. Vermeer was a groundbreaker because he painted common, ordinary folk, doing ordinary things, giving us a fantastic insight into the lives of the commoners from the 1600's.
Vermeer's home town, by the way, was ... Delft! And he is buried in the "Olde" church, or "Oudekerk". Below is a photo of the tower of the Old Church. Notice anything about the tower?
If it looks like it is leaning to the right, it's because.... it *IS* leaning to the right! About ten feet, to be exact. The tower was built in the 1200's. Because practically all of Holland is silt (the saying goes, "God created the world, but the Dutch made Holland") and part of the tower was built on a filled-in canal, the thing leans. The Old Church holds the tomb of Vermeer, as well as Antoine Van Leeuwenhoek, the inventor of the microscope and father of microbiology.
Below is a picture of the Prinsenhof. Students of European History will recognize the Prinsenhof as the place where Balthasar Gerard shot William of Orange (in the very first assassination of a politician using a firearm). William of Orange was the one who stopped Philip II (Holy Roman Emperor, for whom the Phillipines are named, and son of Charles V who sent Cortez to bring back the Incan/Aztec gold to finance his wars to force all of Europe to stay Catholic). William of Orange was a brilliant strategist who started out loyal to Philip, but who grew tired of the murder of thousands in the name of keeping the faith pure by stamping out the Protestants and Calvinists and Lutherans, etc., so William declared the Netherlands independent of the Spanish/Hapsburg empire. If you want some interesting reading, look up the entries on these folks on Wikipedia. Anyway, William of Orange was killed here, and is buried in an elaborately-decorated tomb in the New Church. The Prinsenhof is in the foreground in this photo, and the tower in the background is that of the old church.
Delft is about 2 hours train ride from our apartment in Antwerpen. We had to change trains in Rotterdam, but Delft makes for an outstanding day trip.
1 comment:
The huge picture of the Night Watchman was sold, I think on EBay, just recently, for over a half a million Euros -- about $750,000. But the buyer lives in the Netherlands and has no place to put it, so it leaving it at the Delft factory for the time being. It was the highlight of the trip for me. Incredible!
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