Cat in stone

A cat in one of the gravestones of a church where I recently have been. I don't know which one anymore. It must have some kind of meaning.

Page

A historic page from a historic book from long ago, at the Catherine Museum of Utrecht.
Last month there was an exposition on the Camino to Santiago de Compostela.

Saint Catherine II

Almost the same picture of Saint Catherine, but a little bit nicer weather.

Very very old

Very very very old church door, imagon what this door has seen pass through!

Saint George and the dragon, Sint Joris en de draak

From the moment houses were build of stone up to the 1850's (somewhere there) it was the custom each house to have an ornament with some scene identifying the purpose of the building.


This house has the scene of St George with the dragon. A scene you see quite often, though it is Saint Martin who is the actual protection saint of Holland. A fight with a dragon speaks more to the imagination then sharing half of your property with the poor, I reason....

O Fortuna""

Medieval house from the Golden Age in Oudewater, a town pretty close to Woerden. I think that the statue is Fortuna?

Museum de Monriaan

This picture is of museum de Monriaan. It is a building from 1617 and originated as a grocery store, after that it became a sugar refinery. In the 1700's it became a tabacco store and remained that until in 1965 when it became a museum. The shop's interior from 1680 is still in place. The building leans forward on purpose, to prevent the rain dripping down via the façade.

Amazing, but the wheater is too good to go to a museum!

The sixth brick

This is the sixth brick, I think the theme is bible study. A group of people are reading, one is probably a teacher pointing to the sky and the others are responding.
It indicates one of the changes of the Reformation, people were allowed to learn to read and become individuals, making independent decisions...

Or it simply is a school setting, maybe an orphanage theme, boys and girls are not sitting together..



Located in the museum garden.

Gods Hand

Julie reminded me I promised 6 bricks.... :) Here is the 5th, this brick says 'Gods Mild Hand' it have been created based on a personal religious experience. Or it's a common theme but I don't know actually, I have never seen it before.

Backside of the Lazarus Gate

This little gate is the backside of the Lazarus gate which is the entry to the museum garden. Actually the Lazarus gate has been rebuild on this spot, what you see is the gate which gave entrance to an old man and woman home, which used to be at another spot as well.

I love this decoration of the old days, they did their best to decorate their homes with stuff which is still possible to admire 400 years later. When you enlarge the photo you can see the detail of the work.

Weigh house

The Waag (weigh house) has been built in 1667 and is located across from the City Hall, this building was used for weighing goods to levy taxes. It now is a national monument. The white relief you see is a replacement of the original which started to crack.


The weighing house in it's surrounding...

Gouda Town Hall 2.

Two more shots of the Town Hall. On saturdays there is market, so I couldn't get a full view.



Like a ship.. heading for some destination..

Gouda Town Hall

Those white spires in the back is where we are going...


In the spacious triangular Markt of Gouda is an imposing Town Hall, a Late Gothic building (1449-59) which was originally surrounded by a moat. The handsome external staircase in Renaissance style was added in 1603. After undergoing a series of alterations the Town Hall was returned to its original aspect during restoration work carried out between 1947 and 1952. On the east wall is a carillon which rings every half hour, with moving figures representing the granting of the town's charter by Count Floris V in 1272.


Visitors can see the interior. In the Trouwzaal (Marriage Hall) is a 17th century tapestry by David Rufelaer made in Gouda. Tomorrow more on the townhall.

Street View

‘Just’ a street in Gouda. No that is not really true… it is located in the historical centre so it is special, but not that special, every town and city (apart from the ones where there has been fighting in WWII) has such city centers. With the sun shining these streets are great to stroll.


This house is from 1643, what it must have seen passing by trough all these centuries… Imagine when you lean to a structure beam, 400 years somebody must have done the same but it is very likely that our world view are so different we would consider eachoter aliens.


A house from the 1700’s. What I find fascinating is that there are about 5 building styles you find in the old towns. The first style is wood, to find these is very rare. Amsterdam has a few and some cities do. These survived because they have some event or emotion attached to it (for one in Amsterdam see here).
Then they started to build in stone, as you seen in the posting of yesterday. What followed then are the 1700’s, like this building, the preceding style was looked down upon, and replaced by the looks of the new time. The 1800’s had a similar style. Moving to the 1900’s the complete building would be destroyed and replaced. But by that time there came the need for expansion of cities so they build new outside the city walls (the city walls and canals were demolished around 1860 when the industrialization started).

What happened over the centuries is that they only modernized the frontals, the structure remained the one of the first house. That is fascinating many people actually live in houses which date back to the first house build on that spot..

The Four Crowned

I have been to Gouda, I guess you know, the town of cheese and wax candles and since recent years with a very large muslim community which is leaving a mark on the city. But that is an other story.

If you ever have the chance to visit the town and have a good look around you will be amazed by the amount of history it contains. It supplied me with a large stock of photos for Daily.

This is the house of the four crowned, the late gothic façade is dated from around 1530. The rich decorated frieze displays the patron saints of the construction workers. It was thought that it was a ‘guild house’ but it appeared to be ‘just’ a house which a certain John the Mason build for himself.


The four construction workers refused in the year 306 to make an idol of Emperor Diocletianus and to worship idols. The were put in lead boxes and thrown in the river alive. In the fries we see them at work. In the middle stood probably a Virgin Mary (I uploaded a large format so you can zoom in on the images).


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The Ham Tower

I took this shot from the train, close to Woerden. It is the 'Ham' tower, it is a medieval remainder of a castle. In some war it was under siege and the enemy wanted to starve them out. But it took long, so long that the army was getting impatient. When the people in the castle put a huge lam’s leg for the birds to pick on the tower. They decided to let it be and left.

The truth was that it was the last food they had... Hmm, what can I learn from this?