It was a great night’s sleep at the De Utrechtsche Dom Hotel – we could too easily get used to this holiday lifestyle! I was out of bed and down at the breakfast room earlier than Julie. It gives me time to write quietly before the day gets underway. I chose a nice table near the window but also in front of the heater which I thought Julie would appreciate. There was a nice perspective out into a tiny courtyard, a rather pleasant and peaceful scene.
A local woman asked if she could share my table. I explained politely that my wife was coming, but she said she just needed to sit in front of the heater. She was great with conversation though, and very good for local insights. She was having a new house built, and staying at the Hotel until it was ready. It was quite interesting to engage in conversation, but it meant I got very little writing done!
She wasn’t offended when I moved to the next table when Julie arrived for breakfast. We continued our three-way conversation. We planned to explore the town of Gouda. The original town was built within a circular system of canals, very much like a moat. It dates back to at least the 10th century when the area was marshy and swampy but takes its name from the Van de Gouda family who settled at about that time. Today it has a population of some 70,000 people and is famous for its production of cheese.
We were very happy to linger long over breakfast, with several cups of coffee, enjoying the warm hospitality of the Hotel manager, who also gave us an excellent walking history tour booklet which was greatly useful. At about 10:30am we headed out into the cold. It was no colder (6C) than previous days, but perhaps because we weren’t doing anything really energetic, it felt ‘freezing’ all day!
We headed back to the historic market square, firstly to the ‘Waag’, the 15th century official weigh-house for the cheeses which over the years has weighed more than 5 million pounds of cheese annually. It was a quaint old building, and dwarfed now by the 14th century ‘Stadhuis’, the Town Hall, built all on its own in the centre of the very large, open market square. It is the eye catching attraction of all of Gouda, with a platform at one end for the regular public executions over the centuries (mostly by hanging) and a platform at the other where petty criminals were tied for public humiliation.
The ‘Sint Janskerk’ (Church of St John the Baptist) is the other stand-out building in the centre of Gouda, but which is sadly so closely built around that there was no possibility of a clear photo. This is probably the most famous Cathedral of all of Holland, boasting being the longest church (123 meters) and the one with more than 70 stained glass windows, the likes of which I have never seen before. It is currently undergoing major foundational work because the church has actually been sinking in the muddy and marshy ground on which it was built some 600 years ago.
Incredibly, as we were about to enter the main (side) door which enters the small bookroom/foyer, a film crew from the Dutch Christian Television Association was also entering. One warm and friendly chap saw us and asked if we would be part of what was happening. Of course we obliged. As it turns out, the Curator of the Church, Mr Manrits Tompot, was the focus of the documentary being filmed. It was he who invited us to participate. We stood with him while he told us his story on camera, and we looked interested. He told of his early hippy life, his travel abroad as a young hippy on the hippy trail, arriving in India and being sheltered for some 7 weeks by a young Christian couple.
He was telling the story of his Christian conversion. On camera, he looked at us and asked if we understood what he was saying. Julie responded nicely to say yes we did, because we are actually Christian Pastors in The Salvation Army back in Australia. At this moment, Manrits broke down into tears and became very emotional, all on camera! He tried then to explain through his tears of joy that the young couple in India were Australians, and connected with The Salvation Army! The film Director loved this. Manrits could not contain his emotions, holding Julie in a huge bear-hug, really sobbing great tears of joy that we should walk through the door at the very moment when the film crew were there to record his story of Christian conversion, and his subsequent years of work as Curator of the magnificent St Janskerk. He was also a student of the work of the great 16th century scholar and Priest Desiderius Erasmus, who was born at Gouda, and served at St Janskerk for a time.
The film crew loved all of this, and used us as the audience as the story continued once Manrits was a little more composed. It will be interesting to see the DVD when it is released. Unfortunately we were not dressed for a television series!
The story of Erasmus is too large for this blog. He seemed to sit theologically between the two great theologians of the time, John Calvin and the Dutchman Arminius. Most of the major church movements to this day draw on the theology of either (or both) of these great theological thinkers of the early Reformation period. The Salvation Army, for example is ‘Arminian’ in its theological perspective which follows the line of John Wesley and the subsequent Methodist movement. It was amazing to think that we stood on ground that was commonly walked by Erasmus, who incidentally was the illegitimate child of a Priest who served at St Jankerk. Erasmus was highly scholared in both Latin and Greek.
We enjoyed the remainder of our short tour of Gouda, the canals, the historic fish markets and the narrow lanes and streets filled with bikes and novelty shops. The cold lured us into Gouda’s most famous shop, the ‘Stoolwaffle’ shop. The famous waffle stems from a baker named Kamphuisen in the year 1800 who created a cheap and tasty ‘biscuit’ out of leftover biscuit crumbs and syrup for the many poor people of Gouda at the time. This ‘poor man’s biscuit’ became a worldwide success right up to the current day.
We were happy to do a brief scouting of the best route out of Gouda tomorrow, and then enjoy a few hours of warmth resting with either a book (Julie) or a computer (Kelvin).
Tomorrow we head out to Delft, famous for its blue and white Dutch porcelain, some 40k to the west of Gouda. It sounds simple, but this area to the south west of Amsterdam is highly populated which makes the negotiation by bike rather complex. As we go to bed tonight we are still not confident of the way out of town tomorrow.
We have enjoyed our stay-over at Gouda, an experience we will long remember. We are planning an early departure tomorrow so we can arrive in time to enjoy some ‘Delft shopping’, perhaps for the right piece of porcelain to take home as a very rare souvenir of our journey together.
The weather looks like sun for the next few days, although the temperatures we can best describe as ‘fresh’. From our cozy room at the De Utrechtsche Dom Hotel, we send our love.
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