The tower of the Great Church of Naarden

Climbing the stairs inside the wall

  Yesterday we weren't really outdoors as we were ascending the local churchtower. Ascending that is using the stairs not climbing the outside.

Having been born in the neighbouring town the city of Naarden has always been the opponent. As a child I hadn't been to Naarden often and it has been one of my wishes to climb the churchtower of The Great Church of Naarden.

Yesterday I took 2 of my kids up the tower. Kids like to do these things.

 

The church was build during the fourteenth and fiftheenth century in the stronghold of Naarden. Naarden was rebuild after been flooded earlier as it's in spitting distance from the former Zuyderzee. Being part of the defenses around Amsterdam and Holland it got double starshaped canals around the city. People that wanted to live inside the city had to pay 2000 bricks for the construction of the church. With the small number of inhabitants 500 years ago it's a miracle the church has been completed - the walls are more than 8 feet wide. The staircase is inside the wall, turning clockwise so it could easely be defended with swords.

Floor of middle section : the churchbells
were hauled up through this hole

The ceiling of the lower part of the tower

The churchtower contained 5 bronze bells until WWII. The smallest of the bells was thrown in the canals to hide it for the German occupier. The 4 bigger bells were stolen by the Germans and transported to Germany where they were melted for warmaterial. Luckily plastermoulds were made so they could be reconstructed after the war.

5 bells in an oakframe

The views from the tower are wide and far.

It's windy on top

View north from the tower

View southeast with cityhall behind the church 

The Great Church of Naarden stitched together

Much too soon we had to get back down again after which we made a tour around the church. Ancient canonballs can still be seen sticking in the walls. Naarden has been occupied and looted by Spaniards, French and Germans and 'rentals' from all over Europe. As far as I know the British have never been here. Instead William of Orange went the other way.

A falcon as guest

When I was a young lad I've had a close encounter with an eagle in the backgarden of an aunt, its enormous wings spread out in front of me. Today I had another encounter with a rather smaller bird of prey but none the less still giving me a WOW moment. 

A young falcon had entered the conservatory, probably thinking it might have an easy snack with one of our Zebra finches. Being unable to reach the little birds it tried to find a way out again but the glass prevented a direct getaway. It gave me the chance to grab my photocamera and take some pictures before it finally escaped through an open door.

It's one of those rare occasions, when you come close and totally unexpected in direct contact with wildlife, that makes you feel very much alive.





Meltdown

Saturday 14 dgrs.C. - Sunday 26 drgs.C. - Monday 34 dgrs.C.

TGO Challenge day 6 : Laggan - Kingussie

I know.
Some people have already written down and published their account of this year's Challenge. I've published my 2007 Challenge long ago (which is no longer available because someone pulled the plug at Fotopic.net) but now I'm rewriting my story as an anquet video.
Main problem is time. There's only 24 hours in a day and I've got so much to do.
I can't say : "Next week day 7 will be ready". You'll just have to check in now and then.
In the meanwhile  day 6 for anyone who's interested :

Avond4daagse : a daunder around town.

While some people were having fun swimming across Scotland from westcoast to eastcoast (has that been done already?) we did our annual "avond4daagse". The "avond4daagse" is a walk or daunder during 4 evenings in a row, mainly undertaken by schoolkids in the age of 6 to 12 but parents and anyone else can join also. Distances are 5, 10 or 15km and, like last year, there were approximately 1900 attenders.

We (me, my wife and kids aged 12, 10 and 6) always subscribe as individuals for the 5km. We don't like to walk with the schoolgroups for obvious reasons : too crowded, too much noise and very chaotic.

All walks start from the AW footballclub sportsground and go through the forest and heather of the district 'Het Gooi' in the Netherlands. These "avond4daagse" walks take place all around the Netherlands and have different starting points of course.

As you can see in the picture we had perfect weather for the first three days, contrary to the weather in most parts of Scotland. This drought has been going on for 8 weeks now. Only during the 4th evening there was some rain but, having started early, we finished before the rain started. The main groups got seriously wet though.

TGO Challenge 2007 : day 5

In realtime the Challenge is in it's third day now for most people. Their start was on Friday the Thirteenth and sofar the weather hasn't been too well.
It's a sort of tradition that the first days can be wet with a fresh dusting of snow on the summits. Every day I check the weather on buienradar and see a lot of showers moving quickly across Scotland.
Although the weather looks rough there can be a huge difference locally as you can read in Phreerunner's report of day 1. During my Challenge in 2007 the first day started warm with hail and snowshowers to be followed by 12 days of sunshine or clouds but hardly any rain. I'm sure this years Challengers will get sunburned somewhere along their way to the eastcoast.

For those staying at home this year I've completed my coverage of day 5 of my 2007 Challenge : from Melgarve Bothy to the Monadhliath Hotel near Laggan.

April weather statistics

Temperature
April has been extremely warm, very sunny and very dry in Holland.
With an average temperature of 13,1 dgs C. April 2011, together with April 2007, is the warmest April since meteorological observations started back in 1706. The longterm average is 9,6 C..
Total of warm days (20+ C.) is 13 and the highest recorded temperature is 27,9.

Rainfall
The average rainfall was 10mm (normally 44mm) and some areas have even less than 5mm of H2O.
March was very dry also so there's now a shortage of rainfall of 100mm.

Sunshine
The sun delivered 258 hours of sunshine, normally we have 178 hours. April 2007 still holds the record with a staggering 284 hours of sunshine.

In Holland we have a saying "April doet wat-ie wil" which best translates with "April does as April likes" meaning that April can have all seasons. This month we've seen only two seasons, spring and summer. I'm afraid it will be a crap summer (june till august) this year.