Day 13 was mostly meandering around the country. We had to make it back to Boskoop, which is a town near Amsterdam, where we were staying until our flight the next day. Before we got there, however, we had several stops to make...
First: the city of Kampen, where my great-grandma was baptized in the church many, many years ago. We got to see the actual baptismal that was used!
De Kerk.
The baptismal.
The church was absolutely beautiful on the inside. It had two big pipe organs! The bigger of the two has 3200 pipes, some from the 1600's!
In 1580, there was a revolt against Catholicism in Holland and all of the beautiful paintings on the church ceilings were painted over. They got rid of the "graven images" as well ("Iconoclast!"). One statue was melted down and made into cannons. In recent years, they have been restoring the paintings on the ceiling. Slowly uncovering them and repainting them to the best of their ability (based on old pictures and descriptions).
My great-uncle says that the big organ was dismantled during World War II and hidden, so that the pipes wouldn't be used as supplies. It was only fully remantled in the 80's or 90's, when the final pipes were found in someone's basement.
Here are some graves on the floor. I wonder who is buried under there?
That's me in the background staring up at the ceiling. I had good reason.
(See the restored painting on the left?)
I don't know if I could go to church here - I'd spend the whole service looking up!
If we had come two weeks later we could have gone to an organ concert at this church... Bach's organ music. Man, I bet that concert was absolutely stunningly gorgeous. I can't even imagine how glorious it sounded.
We walked around Kampen after that. Tintin had a good time.
...sort of...
Hup Holland, hup!
Tintin found another Captain to be his friend.
Some interesting things we saw...
Not sure what this restaurant place is all about... but I hope they don't have oliphant on the menu!
Cheese. =D
Alright, there was this store and the windows were FULL of these mannequins! All I could think was...
That's the original gate to the city.
After Kampen, we drove to Zee, to see some sights that you wouldn't expect to see in Holland.
The ocean! You can't go to the ocean and not wade...
Don't tell the authorities, but I may have smuggled some shells into the United States without declaring them... and I'm not even sure if it was legal to pick them up in the first place.
That just about wraps up day 13!
Live long and prosper.
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