The Detail Fanatic in Me…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Ok, I will confess that I am being side tracked today.

My range of walking is limited by the crutches and carrying the camera isn’t easy, but I wanted to be a little mobile so I did my exercises in stages, progressing slowly around the courtyard around the gite.

The old farmhouse that is attached to the gite has been empty for years but there are still beautiful details in the windows, walls and doors.

The detail fanatic in me forced me to take my time to get over to these and make an effort to capture their beauty.

The oldest section of  the farm buildings date from 1783. I imagine that if only they could speak, the story that these items could tell of their life on a working farm in rural France over the centuries would be no doubt be a long and interesting one.

I do have to admit though that you will no doubt swiftly spot the “odd item out” within my photo series… whilst  it’s definitely a 21st Century addition,  but I think it is a nice reflection of the “old and new” that typically makes up our lives today.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

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Gîte Inside and Take a Look Around…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

So, back to our Easter trip to France… in yesterdays post I showed you around the outside of our gîte, our holiday home from home for the next week.

There is a decent sized living area, with sofa,  indoor dining table, kitchen with fridge freezer and oven, and outdoor dining table outside through the back door so we can choose al fresco dining or indoors as we wish.

There are two large bedroom, our main room with the double bed has a 3/4 bed at the end (good to move into the second bedroom and sleep an extra kid if you need) and French doors leading out the front, plus shutters for warmer summer evenings.

The second bedroom contains two single beds and a seat that I forgot to investigate further, but may have been a extra fold-out bed since the gite is advertised on the website to sleep six,  but it’s biggest bonus is that it’s a very large room indeed so extra beds could easily be put into it if you wanted four kids in the one room.

The bathroom contains a large open shower, no steps or inside bath arrangements for me to struggle with on crutches and the toilet is invalidity sized and could  accommodate a wheelchair if needed.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

There’s a washing machine for doing laundry, a massive stack of local information in the folder provided and it’s supposed to have wifi if you need computer access.

The computer access was the one and only negative of this gîte…  I know from two of our three sets of French friends that internet connection in rural areas of France is very hit and miss.

One of them has reliable internet and a strong signal almost all the time. Another has next to none most of the time and almost never bothers to use their computer, and the third has a strange mixture of the two, the connection being perfectly fine at some moments and practically nil the next.

At this gîte the signal  never showed more  than one bar of signal strength and the error message that I could paraphrase as  ” signal too low, unable to connect to server“  became the daily message that I got used to. Every now and again the signal strength was just enough for me to  see email for a few minutes but it was frustrating trying to find that window of opportunity.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I used the computer as a photo dumping site  instead and for writing up posts and ideas for posts and was pleased to have had posts in the schedule for this week, otherwise it would have been very annoying indeed.

If  this area is one of the unlucky spots, lost in the dark ages of internet connectivity, then there isn’t much the gîte owners can do… they have to make do with whatever connectivity there is.

For us the weather was unseasonably glorious, with an average temperature of 25 C so we could comfortably eat outside in the evenings even though it was only April.  Whilst I love my laptop, I could also take an enforced break and enjoy my ‘off-line-life” as much as I do my one-line one.

The lack of internet also definitely  helped to improve my French as the TV  here receives only local stations:  there were some good movies on the box that gave my gray cells a workout as I furiously tried to keep up with the twists and turns of the plot.

So, space inside and garden outside, there’s even a table-tennis table in the garden,  my kids are already making friends with the gîte owner’s children in spite of them speaking no French and the other kids almost no English. (The oldest girl had a few words in English as she had just begun to study it in school but preferred to stretch my French to the limit as she felt very shy trying her few words out on a native speaker)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

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The gîte owners wife is brilliantly friendly and soon after settling in we feel like we have been here for days instead of hours.

The silence is broken only by children’s laughter and birdsong.

Bliss!

Gîtes de France … Finding the Perfect Place…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

So, I am planning a holiday in France… hmm the countryside might be nice… village or completely rural location, something rustic and typically French.

In my dreams …right?

Maybe not.  If ever you wanted your dream to come true, there is an organisation that you need to know about.

They are called “Gîtes de France”     and their website is :   http://www.gites-de-france.com/

So, What is a Gîte ?  well you pronounce it “jzeet” and it’s a kind of holiday house, camping or rented rooms,  and there are a selection all throughout France that range from ultra basic  to  luxurious, from cheap to expensive.

There are “childrens gîtes” that are especially family friendly, gîtes by the week or for weekend breaks, you can choose a gîte according to your passion: golf, skiing, beach, gourmet, with a garden, historic,  lake, countryside, village, or if you choose in the offshore  departements of France, even tropical.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

With 45 000 gîtes to choose from and 10 000 Chambre d’hôtes available in places affiliated with gîtes, there should be something to suit everyone, where-ever you want to be in France.

Mostly the rural gîtes are on working farms or adjoining  houses in villages, the local bakery may or may not be within walking distance depending on your choice but even if you have to drive a short distance  for fresh bread or croissants, it will be worth it. (you know by now I have a “thing” about freshly baked bread don’t you? LOL)

Family Kiwidutch love staying in a gîte because it allows us to have our own personal space at a good price.

Usually there are  decent kitchen and laundry facilities, and masses more space then a hotel and you can pick and choose your comfort level and number of rooms to suit.  In our case we look for one with a garden and for me on this particular trip, one with no stairs, a disability friendly shower area  and close in location to two of the three families we are visiting.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

A little searching on the Gîtes de France website and I found one that met all of our criteria and was economical as well,   …jackpot!

I do have to say that I speak enough French that the website poses no problem for me to navigate, but even if you had to resort to a dictionary for a few key terms,  it’s fairly easy. The number of  “wheat”  next to the listing will tell you what grade of accommodation you are getting and checklists for items wanted: i.e.  number of beds, garden, dogs permitted (or not), swimming pool etc allow you to narrow down your search within a geographical area relatively efficiently.

So as we pull up outside our  gîte we get a view of where we will be staying for the next week…

Imagine a courtyard accessed by an large arch in the main wall, to the right, on the same wall is the old farmhouse, now long since empty, and in a wing adjoining that, the gîte , to the left of the archway there are various outbuildings for storage etc and off that, the main farmhouse (opposite the gîte ) on the remaining side a large wall, and a gate, the farm equipment sheds and the “working” hub of the farm.

There is a passageway between the end of the gite and the farm equipment wall, and it expands at the back to reveal a private patio, BBQ and a gate that leads straight out to the vines… I hear the small rustle of leaves in the wind, birdsong and … other than that,  total silence.

Merveilleux…

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There’s No French Toast in a French Breakfast…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Bonjour! Join me as I take you on an adventure to  France… …yesterday evening we arrived in Chartres, just south of Paris.

We have  managed to get past the Paris Ring road with comparatively few delays and been spat out the other end back onto the  main motorway south. I will sing  praises of any French government who can ever make as direct as possible motorway that would by-pass the Paris Ring road.

Presently if you wish to avoid it, the alternative north/south routes involve either going through Rouen,  adding a full 120 kilometers extra to your journey or taking the smaller provincial “B’ roads (or in the French case: “N” roads) which are slow, often single laned, winding and often already congested with everything from trucks to tractors wishing to avoid the toll motorways.

We are pleased to have left the Parisian morning commuters  behind us and to be past the half-way point of our journey.We have an excellent night’s sleep and are looking forward to breakfast in France.

Once again I am surprised and delighted to see that the level of service here is so much better than I would have expected. Maybe it was because I was on crutches?  Possibly,  … but  to be honest, judging from last evenings reception and room service experience I rather think that the management here have invested in some good staff training which the employees have actually taken to heart.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Little Mr., typical six year old,  is adamant that a novelty plastic spoon picked up in a Birthday party gift bag last week (and currently sitting filthy in the back seat of the van because after he ate yogurt with it  soon after we started out yesterday) is the only spoon he wants to eat this mornings yogurt with. He’s adamant he wants the yogurt too.

Himself  leaves the hotel dining room to retrieve it from the van and get it washed, so I’m alone in the dining room supervising what the kids are wanting to put onto their plates. I’m pleasantly surprised when staff offer to carry glasses of orange juice for me and offer to fetch anything that we might need bringing to the table.

They were an excellent help and made the whole breakfast procedure run far smoother than it otherwise would have and  they were even friendly and seemed completely happy to be of help too!  Bravo!

The kids do well with breakfast and in fact after the delight of the service I was rather surprised when the only thing that let this place down was the cooked part of the breakfast menu. Sorry, the bacon was only just “ok”  and those scrambled eggs and sasuages really were not palatable at all.

It wasn’t only Himself and I who thought so either, Little Mr has recently taken a shine to scrambled egg but refused point blank after the first mouthful. I don’t blame him, none of us found ours nice enough to persevere with.

The fruit, yogurt, pastries and rolls were however well up to the standards we have come to expect when in France, so we didn’t leave hungry at all, and the individual tea-pots are something that we have never seen before in all our French travels so well done there too.

I don’t usually start my day with hot chocolate but the French do it so well that it’s become a habit of mine each time we are there now and this does not disappoint: served in the typically French style: a wide mouthed cup/bowl sans handle  and truely, it is a divine way to start your day.

Who needs “French Toast” when you have this? (for the record, I’ve never seen French Toast on any French breakfast menu, …ever.)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

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Shortly after breakfast we are packed and ready for the road again…  I would highly recommend the Novotel Chartres, it’s clean, comfortable, good value for money and the grand bonus: the friendly Staff have made us keen to repeat the experience.

Hotel Review: Just South of Paris …Novotel Chartres

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

In continuation of yesterday’s post we are searching for a hotel on the south side of Paris.

Now Paris is a very big city and we could see various signs for all the major hotel chains as we passed though on the ring road but since the intention was to get past Paris’s traffic nightmare at that point and not get deeper into it, we refrained from taking any off-ramps at the time.

We  know from experience how bad evening traffic in Paris can be… and Himself and I know only too well how much worse morning traffic can be in Paris too, having foolishly found ourselves standing still in it for almost three hours a year or so earlier.

The good thing about motorways is that there are few exits and entrances and you can cover large distances at greater speeds resulting in a smoother journey.

The bad thing about  motorways are that there are few exits and entrances and you can cover large distances whilst still looking for a place to sleep.

Consequently we were in  Chartres before we finally saw signs that major accommodation sites were available without having to drive a further 20 kilometers off the motorway and back.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

We wanted a Family room and since rooms in Europe tend to be tiny because the land is expensive, thought that we would have more luck with this if we went to a larger chain brand name.

There were several, side by side and  first one we went to was fully booked ( it was now 9:00  in the evening) but the securely gated one next to it was a Novotel and after Himself had made a few enquiries at Reception he came back to the van: we had came up trumps.

The room has a double bed for Himself and I and a double pull out sofa bed for the kids to share. They put us on the first floor and there is a lift, so I have no problem getting to the room.  There’s a bath in the bathroom with a shower over it ( not always a standard item in European rooms also due to the room sizes being small, so this is bonus).

Whilst Himself and the kids are dealing with bags I contact room service and order hot chips (fries) for the kids and a Caesar salad for us and it arrives promptly, chips hot and with a smile. We are impressed. The French  (like the Dutch) have sadly never been renowned for their “service with a smile” mentality, so this is a very welcome change.

Our small bite is tasty and satisfies the rumbling tummy problems within the clan. A short while later, teeth brushed etc both kids  are tucked up and fast asleep in the fold-out bed. The bathroom is behind the lighted panels next to the bed and the toilet is separate.

Himself and I are tired after the long drive, I’ve tried to keep my foot elevated on the extra front seat in the van but it’s not comfortable all the time so I have to put it down part of the time. It’s swollen up considerably and after taking some pain relief, a good night’s rest is inviting.

We all sleep brilliantly, and in the morning the kids enjoy a bath… we have two massive showers at home but no bath so this is a novelty they love.  A look out the window in the morning light gives us an idea of the view we missed last evening.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

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Refreshed we head off to breakfast…

Escaping the rat race… kind of …at first.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

What do you do when you have emptied the freezer and fridge because the electricians are playing with the electrics in your house and everything in the house is more “off” than “on”, your kids are on their Easter break and you can’t negotiate most of the house because of all the work in progress?

You run away to France of course.

We have friends in France and for the last three years Himself and I have made short long weekend trips there, combining a little business with pleasure and making sure that we stopped by three families that Himself has kept contact with over many years.

Each time in the last three years they have complained that our children have not accompanied us, so last year we promised them that next trip they would.

With one thousand kilometers of distance between us it was not a road trip we really relished making with kids, but it was time for them to prove that they could be a bit more grown up in the back seat and to get used to the idea that if they could sit still in an aeroplane for fourteen hours at a stretch, it was about time they proved that they could do six hours or so in a car.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I needed to get permission to take Annual Leave and to travel since I am still recovering from my accident  and still only working part-time, and we needed to figure out how I could travel with my foot raised as much as possible. We managed to sort and solve both issues by hiring a van for the trip since our very little car is both too small and too old to be reliably  gallivanting around on such long distance travels.

A few years ago I bought two little magical boxes… they are called Nintendo DS’s and they live in a special drawer, only coming out as our “travel toys” . Our kids may pine, doe eyed for them the rest of the time, but sorry, in our house they are let out only for long distance plane and car trips.

The novelty  and excitement  factor of even getting their paws back on these is guaranteed to keep the kids busy (and silent!) for several hours or more and whilst the traditional game of “I spy” would be far more educational, I have found that on a practical level these little machines produce less stress and more family harmony in the end.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Modern motorways have evolved into busy mega traffic-moving corridors with man-made or organic barriers for soundproofing and  rarely made with great scenery in mind and  after all, there are only so many “T is for truck“  in the I spy game that you can handle. Thus I bow to modern technology and Nintendo comes to the rescue of parental sanity.

Since the kids have a half-day school on the Friday, we have the car packed and ready and with a chilly bin  (that’s a.k.a. “cooler”, “cool-box” or an “esky” to some of you) we head out into Dutch Friday traffic.

Trying to get through Dutch and Belgium traffic on a Friday afternoon may or may not have been the wisest travel plan we have ever made, but the hope was that they would be less of a problem than the dreaded Paris Ring Road.

The Paris Ring Road is monster of a road that inhales vast volumes of  motorised vehicles and reduces their speed to  close to zero for the duration of it’s length. Himself and I have had the dubious pleasure in the past of crawling though it’s mass of choked lanes at a snails pace and wasting hour after hour of our lives on it, usually looking up the backside of a large truck…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

…but at various intervals the beast breathes a little and this massive artery whooshes traffic though in a respectable time so we were trying to gamble that if we could survive the  “relative” small madness of traffic-jams of the big cities of the Netherlands and Belgium leading there, that we would be passing the Paris beast in time to be sucked though it during one of these quieter traffic windows.

We progress  steadily south… passing the old border posts between The Netherlands and Belgium and those of Belgium and France, the kids do some plane spotting when we pass by Orly airport, and later, Paris’s bigger airport Charles de Gaulle.

There are a few childish squalls in the backseat, but they are tiny waterspout moments rather than the whirlwind wars of the past and we have to make allowances for normal evening tiredness, so all things considered we are doing well.

The Paris Ring Road sucks us in… with the pulse of traffic exiting and entering, we go slow, then faster… fortunately the Parisian dinner hour is soon approaching and the traffic thins accordingly, speeding our way…  we are exhaled by this beast of a road on the other side and start looking for a bed for the night.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

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Bagels: “Take Two”… This time for a Lunch at Home…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Way back on April 14th we tried out  new cafe establishment that sold bagels and coffee, called “Beans and Bagels” http://kiwidutch.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/new-342/

The jury was out concerning the taste of bagels and their toppings  on offer and so we had already decided to give it another go one day after we had gotten used to the idea.

The opportunity arose when we expected visitors for lunch one day who wanted to say hello and catch up on my recovery progress after the accident.

Trying to maneuver  in my minuscule kitchen is difficult with crutches and a chair and with my going out opportunities are severely  limited, but  I noticed that it was possible to order “Bagels and Beans” on-line so this seemed to be the perfect solution.

The website says that if you place and order before 10:00 am then you get a 10% discount of your order, so I duly ordered before 10:00 and it was arranged that Himself would pick up our order shortly before our guests were due to arrive.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Whilst the order was there as requested, it appeared that the staff knew nothing about the promised discount on the website… they did give it to Himself after some pressure but I must say I was rather disappointed that we, as the customer, had to point it out to them, the business, that it existed on their own website.

Since we had no idea what preferences for toppings our guests would favour, we went for the same tapas menu as last time,  but also ordered additional bagels to go with it and some brownies.

The topping  selection was the same as last time, sun-dried tomatoes,  guacamole, tuna salad,  tapenade,  parma ham and cream cheese.

The brownies had walnuts in this (um what? I never knew that Brownies were supposed to have nuts in them.. maybe it just me?  my Brownie experiences have after all, been few).

Since lunch was to be a relaxed and informal affair everyone opted for serving up on the old beaten up coffee table in the sunshine of the front room rather than the sunless cold of the dining table at the back  (it gets late afternoon sun), Himself made tea and coffee and we passed around plates.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Our guests appreciated the variety of the toppings and since they were not Dutch and already knew Bagels from their home country experiences, were delighted to know that there was now a place in The Hague where bagels could be obtained.

When asked for a very honest opinion however, they did co-incidently come  up with many of the same conclusions as we did. They found the guacamole “passable” but really overly pureed to the point of almost being a sauce than a spread, and said that they too would have liked flavours with far more intensity.

We all thoroughly enjoyed the novelty value of  being able to try something different, but agreed that our next move would be to buy the bagels fresh  whenever we wanted some and make our own spicier, more herb and garlic punched-up-impact toppings to go with them ourselves at home.

This is exactly what I intend to do when we need to cater food for several  Birthday parties in a few weeks,  a friend is coming over to help make some toppings and so my garlic press will be on overdrive and my herbs will have enough impact to make our guests taste buds sing.

Sometimes I think that the best bit of a new taste experience, is knowing when and how to make the best you can out of it… and this we fully intend to do.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

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Windows give an Outlook on the World…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Another folder in my archive folder holds photographs of  interesting  windows that I have found on my walking journey’s through the Hague last summer.

Their various styles naturally reflect the periods of the houses they are in, but they are united in the additional ornamentation that feature in combinations of brick, tile, ironwork, decorative features and glass.

Looking around any building of like age in this city, these appear to be standard features and not “extras” at all…

…and this makes me seriously wonder at the supposed “advances” we have made in the plain featureless “plain” boxes that architects today churn out in modern cities all over the world.

I ask myself if the progression from old style to new has really been “progress”?

Personally, when I see the detail and beauty in the bricks and mortar here, I see a balance, harmony, peace,  beauty and sheer mastery that exceptionally few modern buildings of  the last half century can even dare to stand in the shadow of.

Look at the combination of forms, how well all the different pieces fit together,  for me it’s like looking at the very different instruments in an orchestra and hearing a symphony when seeing the whole.

These are details that make me stare, inspire me and make my inner artist dream.

Call me a hopeless romantic, but I think the world needs more dreamers…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

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A School to make Girls Industrious…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Last summer I made an effort to walk down streets I had never walked along before and was rewarded by finding a multitude of beautiful buildings that I photographed and wanted to find out more about.

This one has it’s own name board in the brickwork “Industrieschool voor meisjes” (“Industrial school for Girls”)  and can be found close to the Laan van Meerdervoort on the Van Diemenstraat 202.

As a result of  a report made by the Department of the Society for the Promotion of Industry, a school of Industry was opened for little girls in 1876.

It was intended to educate little girls from the middle and lower classes by equipping them with in-depth training to enable them to earn a living by home economics based  activities  which were deemed suitable, honest, decent and appropriate  occupations for females at the time.

The school opened with 26 students in the Van Assendelftstraat but despite using space  reclaimed from a nearly filled-in canal, the school grew so quickly that a new premises was soon needed.

The task was given to architect J.J. van Nieukerken in 1887, who designed a richly decorated seven-roomed school with staircase gables and roof vault in the renaissance revival style. In 1890 the school was built in the Van Diemenstraat 202, for 37,873 guilders.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

The school continued to grow steadily and by 1900 the building was extended by six rooms to accommodate the 170 students.

Ten years later this became an imposing structure as the number of students continued to increase and changes were made as “industrieonderwijs” (industrial development) now changed in the name and it was called ” huishoudonderwijs” (Domestic development)

in 1960 it underwent a  name change  and became known as  the “Prinses Beatrixschool”

The website invites comments by anyone who has a memory of this building and there was one response by Joke Farla-Rietveld that says ” after primary school I went in September 1949 to the Industrial school for young girls in the Van Diememstraat.

It was a very old building with wooden staircases and all of the equipment was old and worn out.  The director was a mevrouw  (Mrs) van der Bild-Doornheim and the teaching staff comprised almost all unmarried ladies. The professions of study were: Dutch, geography, history, biology, English and French.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

The common education was called AVO, and we also learned to sew, embroider, wash, brush, clean, polish silver and cook. The brushes were all very old fashioned and the irons were made hot on a large iron plated  hob with a gas burner underneath.

You had to use thick rags to handle the irons and you had to watch out for scorch marks and be careful not to burn yourself.  I had lessons here for five years and was glad I could leave. On the gable above the entrance door is a decoration in brick that says ” industry school for little girls“

On the 1st of May 1982 the school passed into the hands of the City Council and three years later it was moved to a premises in the Theresiastraat.

For photos of what the school looked like inside click on: http://www.budve.nl/Zeeheldenkwartier/006/006.htm (text = Dutch language only)

This text was translated using information found at: http://www.haagsescholen.nl/index.php?option=com_groepsfoto&view=instantie&id=1178&Itemid=54 (text = Dutch language only)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

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Plein 1813 …is also a Place in History…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Another dig into my archive files from last summer… this time I combine History with amazing craftsmanship…

If you wanted to go directly from the very centre of the Hague out to the beach then the route you you want to take goes down a relatively short, but very busy street called the Alexanderstraat.

(Ok the rest of the stretch of this same stretch of  road has other names such as Parkstraat, Kneuterdijk and Buitenhof,  true to dutch tradition of changing the street at every turn or large intersection, but it is the Alexanderstraat section of the road that we are interested in today.)

Long long before automobiles were invented, the city Father’s plonked a very large memorial in the middle of a very large Plein, called simply “Plein 1813″.

(a Plein in English would be called a “Square”, but a  Dutch Plein never actually has to be square in shape, many of them being in fact round, but how can I call it a “round” without totally confusing people? )

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

In due course the horses that would have detoured around this oval shaped Plein transformed into horses of the motorised kind and this place, by default became one of the cities few roundabouts.

History of the city tells us that on November 19th 1813  Jacob baron Fagel set sail in a “pink“  ( fron the Dutch “pincke” a small  flat-bottomed, narrow sterned boat)  from the sea-side town of Scheveningen. Probably in secret,  his mission was to report to The Prince of Orange in England about the state of the Nation at home.

On the 30th of November 1813 the Prince of Orange returns to Dutch soil and lands in Scheveningen. It was said, that in this spot it was possible to see the Prince approaching the city of The Hague.

At the time, this spot on the Alexanderstraat represented the very outer edge of the city limits, and is close to the famous “Scheveningseweg” which both then and today is the ancient and historic road connection between the Hague and  Scheveningen.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

This monument commemorates the Dutch victory over Napoleonic occupation that heralded the foundation of the Kingdom of The Netherlands in 1813 and it’s subsequent independence.

King Willem III laid the first stone on the 17th November 1863 and Prince Frederik of The Netherlands dedicated it on the 17th November 1869 when it was completed.

The overall design was the work of architect Willem Cornelius van der Wayen Pieterszen, but it also features the work of Belgian sculptor brothers, Jacques and Joseth Jaquet, who are responsible for the four substantial pictorial friezes around the bases of the four plinths.

On each of the plinths are  represented in turn: King Willem I, taking the oath of the constitution, a female figure representing History,  the grouped figures of Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp, French Adam of of the Duyn van Meuse dam and Léopold of Limburg Stirum, who prepared the return of William of Orange,  and a second female figure that  represents Religion.

(Sadly these are replicas from the Rijnland Foundry since the originals sustained substantial damage in 1954.)

The entire monument underwent renovation in 2004 and the bronze figures underwent special weatherproofing in 2007  to protect them from pollution and the weather.

The “triumphal stedenmaagd” (triumphal maiden/a.k.a. The Dutch Maiden) is the name given to the female figure  who adorns the very top of the monument.  During the “Dutch Revolt”  a single maiden represented “The Netherlands” as a collective entity.  The Dutch Maiden continued to be used as a symbol for a while, after the creation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The symbol of the Netherlands, The Lion stands beside her and represents the Burgundian Netherlands (formerly land that is today The Netherlands and Belgium)  and lion imagery first appears as a crest on the tomb of Philip the Handsome.  The Lion traditionally symbolises bravery, valour, strength, and is also the symbol of  royalty.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

I find the history of Plein 1813  fascinating, but  must say that personally, the amazing mastery of stonemasonary of Jacques and Joseth Jaquet steals the show and takes my breath away. Every time you look you see new detail. The beauty they have left here for us to enjoy is  …Monumental!