The weather report for our Easter holiday weekend is not promising:cold and rainy off and on, with WIND! Now you will recall that Holland has alot of windmills. Ask yourself WHY? If you answered "because it's windy" you win a stroopwafel! So if we wait for the weather to cooperate to go adventuring we might never leave the house! With our boot filled with jackets,bananas, water and muesli bars we set out for the wilds of downtown Rotterdam! Kidding about the supplies, we won't need them today because we are heading down to the Grote Markt in Rotterdam which is held Tuesday and Saturday. It spans over a mile around the streets of historic harbour area. Rows and rows of Stalls upon stalls of knockoff watches, antiques, turkish food,miracle bras(as seen on TV!), scarves, shoes, fruit, vegetables,suitcases and handbags, herring, kip,easter confectionary,cheap dvd's,and our favourite...the clothing that says things in English that don't make sense! Today's winner-- a jacket which proudly emblazones across it's front--
POWERFUL THE UNIVERSITY est 1984! Jerry says that's going to be his new alma-mater! We bought all kinds of goodies, including some kind of freshly made sugar buns with raspberry inside for the kids. We wander the markt for an hour or so enjoying the sights and smells and trying to ignore the
20 mile/hour and intermitent rain showers. It is great!
Our second stop is the famous Kubus-Paalwoningen-Cube Houses created in 1978 by architect Piet Blom. These are a set of innovative houses based on the concept of "living as an urban roof": high density housing with sufficient space on the ground level. Blom tilted the cube of a conventional house 45 degrees, and rested it upon a hexagon-shaped pylon. His design represents a village within a city, where each house represents a tree, and all the houses together, a forest. The houses contain three floors:
It was wild to climb up the stem of the tree and enter the show house museum. We enjoyed sitting in the kitchen and pretending that we lived there, but decided that we didn't think we would really want to! Especially Molly, those stairs are steep!
We feed the parking machine,typical big city, and head over to the Laurenskerk.
This church was built between 1449 and 1525. The church was always austere and in 1572 ,the reformation period, the church was stripped of the sculptures customary in Catholic churches. Nearly all of the walls of the church slant, the church was built on boggy ground between the Rivers Rotte and Meuse.In the Rotterdam Blitz on May 14, 1940 the Laurenskerk was heavily damaged. At first there were calls to demolish the church, but that was stopped by the Germans. The provisional National Monuments Commission had both supporters and opponents of restoration. In particular, committee member and architect J.J.P. Oud opposed rebuilding in 1950 and presented an alternative plan which would preserve only the tower. Next to the memorial a new, smaller church would be built. This alternative plan was rejected, particularly because restoration of the Laurenskerk was viewed as a symbol of the resilience of Rotterdam'
s
community. This photo shows a post bombing view of Rotterdam, with the Laurenkerk still standing amidst the destruction. In 1952, Queen Juliana of the Netherlands laid the foundation stone and the reno took about 10 years. It is massive and impressive. And cold!
We decide that we have fought the weather enough after about 4 hours.
The rest of the day is spent at home, warming up and playing games, skyping with the family in NJ,eating and watching our family favourite movie
Seven Brides For Seven Brothers! If you haven't seen this, give it a watch, the dancing is awesome!
POWERFUL THE UNIVERSITY est 1984! Jerry says that's going to be his new alma-mater! We bought all kinds of goodies, including some kind of freshly made sugar buns with raspberry inside for the kids. We wander the markt for an hour or so enjoying the sights and smells and trying to ignore the
20 mile/hour and intermitent rain showers. It is great!
Our second stop is the famous Kubus-Paalwoningen-Cube Houses created in 1978 by architect Piet Blom. These are a set of innovative houses based on the concept of "living as an urban roof": high density housing with sufficient space on the ground level. Blom tilted the cube of a conventional house 45 degrees, and rested it upon a hexagon-shaped pylon. His design represents a village within a city, where each house represents a tree, and all the houses together, a forest. The houses contain three floors:
- ground floor entrance
- first floor with living room and open kitchen
- second floor with two bedrooms and bathroom
- top floor which is sometimes used as a small garden
It was wild to climb up the stem of the tree and enter the show house museum. We enjoyed sitting in the kitchen and pretending that we lived there, but decided that we didn't think we would really want to! Especially Molly, those stairs are steep!
We feed the parking machine,typical big city, and head over to the Laurenskerk.
This church was built between 1449 and 1525. The church was always austere and in 1572 ,the reformation period, the church was stripped of the sculptures customary in Catholic churches. Nearly all of the walls of the church slant, the church was built on boggy ground between the Rivers Rotte and Meuse.In the Rotterdam Blitz on May 14, 1940 the Laurenskerk was heavily damaged. At first there were calls to demolish the church, but that was stopped by the Germans. The provisional National Monuments Commission had both supporters and opponents of restoration. In particular, committee member and architect J.J.P. Oud opposed rebuilding in 1950 and presented an alternative plan which would preserve only the tower. Next to the memorial a new, smaller church would be built. This alternative plan was rejected, particularly because restoration of the Laurenskerk was viewed as a symbol of the resilience of Rotterdam'
s community. This photo shows a post bombing view of Rotterdam, with the Laurenkerk still standing amidst the destruction. In 1952, Queen Juliana of the Netherlands laid the foundation stone and the reno took about 10 years. It is massive and impressive. And cold!
We decide that we have fought the weather enough after about 4 hours.
The rest of the day is spent at home, warming up and playing games, skyping with the family in NJ,eating and watching our family favourite movie
Seven Brides For Seven Brothers! If you haven't seen this, give it a watch, the dancing is awesome!
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