The Dom: Tall, Strong and Beautiful…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Before I flip this archive page of my diary and my Kiwi Cousins and I leave the city of Utrecht, we have a last look around the central city.

We are captivated by the activity on the water below us, and by various views of the Dom tower… the tallest church tower in The Netherlands.

I first visited Utrecht way back in 1988 whilst on holiday with family. Other family members who lived in Utrecht at the time told us all about the story behind the tower.  Their version differs slightly from other texts I’ve read since and goes like this:

The church was built in stages, starting in the 14th Century with the massive  tower, built as a symbol of power and with the first rush of enthusiasm and funding.

The main body of the church was started at the far end, with the intention of building the nave last as the connecting section between the two.

The tower alone took sixty years to build and as with building projects centuries over, was running way over time and over budget.

With funds to finish the church becoming  increasingly difficult to find, they built the nave of inferior quality materials, which  managed to stay standing for 300 years until a freak storm hit the church in the 1670′s and  the weaker nave section collapsed.

Our family historians then told me that the rubble was left for a hundred years before being cleared away and that it was decided not to rebuild the nave but to leave the remaining part of the church and the tower simply as two separate pieces, which they still are today.

This story differs because they say there was a nave, built and then collapsed whilst other versions of the story say that the church was never finished. Since I can’t step back in time to the 1670′s to check what was or wasn’t constructed, I’m unable to verify exactly which of these accounts is the more accurate and my small allotment of time is more than used up trying to chase up more local history in The Hague.

What remains as truth is the simple fact the Dom tower is a stunning building, (even all these years later I remember photographing some very impressive gargoyles when I went up it). The tower is an imposing sight that can be glimpsed from various angles around the city and it’s not hard to be captivated by the stunning architecture … a structure that was intended to exude strength, beauty and power to all who saw it centuries ago, … and still does today.

(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)

One Building Has Worn Multiple Hats, Another, the Result of a Dying Wish…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Situated near the Stadthuys entrance of the square stands a clock tower painted in a matching shade of pink/red as the Youth Museum & Art Gallery, Church and Stadthuys… our guide tells us it was built by a son over a century ago to fulfill his father’s last request. I did some research on the internet because I had totally forgotten the names our guide gave us at the time and discovered the following information: (website link at the bottom of this post if you are interested in reading more)

“More commonly known as Red Clock Tower, the Tan Beng Swee Clock Tower stands tall at the center of the Dutch Square. While it was named after Chinese billionaire Tan Beng Swee, it was actually his son, Tan Jiak Kim, who had this built in 1886 to fulfill his father’s promise.

Tan Beng Swee was a rich Chinese man who lived in Malacca and was known for his philanthropy. He donated the land where the city’s Chinese cemetery now lies and the bridge just beside the tower.

For almost a century, the clock installed on top of the tower was from England. In 1982, however, it was replaced by a Seiko clock, which was not received well by the older residents of the city and caused an outrage because many of them still remember the suffering they experienced when Japan occupied the city decades ago.”

When I first photographed the clock tower  from the bridge I was under the impression that it supports a radio mast… luckily this isn’t this case, the mast being a far larger construction situated behind the Stadthuys, and my position on the bridge just producing an unfortunate angle.

Once I walked a bit further it was clear that the two were separate and that the clock tower was rather a sweet little building. In case you are wondering if  it’s Melaka’s version of Pisa, it’s me on a lean, not the tower. I was juggling crutches, camera and a water bottle and the further I walked the more I ended up leaning on at one of the crutches when I stopped since it was rather tiring keeping up. Nevermind, you get the idea of the surroundings at least.

I’m not quite sure if requesting my kids to build a clock tower would be an item that features anywhere on a list of my dying wishes… but hey, each to his own, and Dutch Square is certainly a prettier place for it, so maybe Tan Beng Swee was onto something.

There’s another former administrative building on Dutch Square too, it stands on the opposite side of the Christ Church to the Stadthuys and was built in 1784. In 1826 it became the Malacca Free School and then roughly one hundred years later a second story was added to it and it took on a new function as a post office, before finally becoming the  Malaysia Youth Museum & Art Gallery.

The  Youth Museum is located on the ground floor and the Art Gallery is housed on the upper floor and displays artworks from both local Melakan artists and from artists from around Malaysia.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

http://www.thepoortraveler.net/2012/05/tan-beng-swee-clock-tower-queen-victoria-fountain-dutch-square-malacca-malaysia/

A Tower in the Sky and a City of Sails…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

You are perusing the pages of my Travel journal, and following our New Zealand travels of December 2011- January 2012.

It’s early January at this point and we are leaving Northland and heading south.  Whilst I’m too amoured with the South Island and the Christchurch region to ever want to live in Auckland (for me there’s far too much motorway and way too busy) there are some aspects of the city that I love and get a buzz from every time I see  again.

Auckland and Manuaku Cities sit back to back on two adjoining harbours, and a relatively tiny strip of connecting land is all that prevents New Zealand’s Northland from being an island.

Consequently the two harbours have many bays and sailing is a very assessable and popular pass-time so it’s little wonder Auckland has earned the nickname “the City of Sails”. Christchurch’s deep water harbour and  port on the other hand is on the other side of the Port Hills in Lyttleton and whilst sailing is also popular there it’s not a patch on the marinas that are seemingly almost everywhere around Auckland’s shores.

Auckland’s Sky Tower is also a new addition to the Auckland skyline since I left New Zealand to live in The Netherlands.  Wikipedia tells me:

“The Sky Tower is an observation and telecommunications tower located on the corner of Victoria and Federal Streets in the Auckland CBD, Auckland City, New Zealand. It is 328 metres (1,076 ft) tall, as measured from ground level to the top of the mast,[4] making it the tallest free-standing structure in the Southern Hemisphere.”

The sky tower is imposing as we round the bays and I never tire of the views as I come over the Harbour Bridge and back into the city…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

The Old Post Office, Regent Theatre …and the Clarendon Façade Doesn’t get a Third Chance…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Today’s post takes us into Christchurch’s Catherdral Square itself… the barriers are in the centre of the central open space of the Square as work is being done on a multitude of buildings close by.

To my amazment the Old Post Ofice building is still standing!

It hasn’t been a Post Office for years now… more recently it became a visitors centre and Starbucks and I have no idea if it is still structurally sound, or repairable if it has sustained damage, …but it’s a relief to see it here at all at this point.

A little further along the Regent Theatre building is now a sad vacant space… CERA have posted a few “then and now” posters on the fences, not for every building we can see, but for a few.

I remember well going to the “pictures” at the Regent during my years in Christchurch and the building too was a beauty inside and out that was much admired and will be sadly missed.

Further down this end of Worcester street that bends around the square and goes towards Oxford Terrace there are several other buildings that I’d like to know more about.

As a kid, I knew the building that’s now called the “Rydges Hotel” by it’s ‘old days” former name of “Noah’s Hotel” ..it sits on the northern side of the Oxford/Worcester corner. I have no idea what shape it’s in now.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

On the Oxford/Worcester south side corner stands the Clarendon Tower.

It’s a stange building because it was formerly the Clarendon Hotel, a grand three storey stone building that dated from around 1903.

Then, very contrivertically in the 1980′s they decided to make a tower block out of it and were going to knock down the hotel completely, but in the end they kept the origonal facade and them “grew” another 15 or so stories of modern building out of the top of it.

It was, and still is, the most bizzare juxtaposition of buildings I have ever seen and not quite a marriage made in heaven.

Yes, I was in the “camp” that said, “better some of it saved to live on in this bizzre fashion than all of it lost completely”,  but I still thought  “What were they thinking?” every time I passed it.

Wiki has more detail about it’s history and photos, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarendon_Tower .

Since the rest of Worcester Street and Oxford Terrace are still cordoned off, I can only see the “town side” of the Clarendon and not the facade that can be more clearly seen from Oxford Terrace. The tower looks forelorn with it’s plywood panels covering  the broken windows.

I can’t see but am also wondering about the (Robert Falcon) Scott memorial statue (of South Pole fame) that sat on the grass on the river side opposite the Clarendon Tower, apparently it toppled in the February quake and was damaged…

…it’s a very special statue because it’s strikingly white in colour instead of the oft prefered bronze and because it was carved to an amazingly professional standard by none other than Scott’s widow, in memory of her husband and his efforts to reach the Pole.

Once again I’ve tried to use Google Street View to give you an idea of what these places were like before. The CERA  information leaflets were flapping around in the wind, so a passing walker volunteers to hold it whilst I take photos. (Thank you Lady, that was sweet of you)… or in Kiwi slang … “Sweet !!”.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Thanks to Google Street View)

(photograph © Thanks to Google Street View)

(photograph © Thanks to Google Street View)

(photograph © Thanks to Google Street View)

Get a Square Peg into a Round Hole? …These Towerhouses Prove It CAN Be Done!

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

The small Dutch town of Leerdam grew over the centuries and earned the right to be called a city in 1407.  Situated on the meeting points of the Rivers Leede and Linge, Leerdam was ruled by local Counts of Leerdam (the “Vijfheerenlanden”) but the region achieved official “County” status in 1498.

The beginnings of the city are thought to have been formed around the 11th or 12th century along with a castle owned by the Lords of Arkel.

The castle incorporated part of the city walls into it’s structure but was separated from the town by a moat.

William of Orange inherited the County of Leerdam in 1557 and he also became the new owner of the castle as part of his inheritance.

in 1574 the town and the castle were besieged by Spanish forces during the “80 Years War” and was destroyed, along with vast sections of the city walls.

Sections of the former castle walls were used to rebuild new city walls but the remaining sections of the castle became a ruin, until in 1770 a “hofje” (almshouse)  for poor young women and widows was built atop of the castle foundations.

The hofje is called ‘Hofje van Aerden’  and is now a museum. During restoration in the 1970′s, original castle wall fragments dating back to 1300 were discovered at the site.

Larger sections of the city walls have been restored over the centuries  and three tower houses were built on the foundations of earlier  wall towers in 1738.

One theory for their shape is:  the bases of the tower houses are round because  a round foundation is a stronger defensive structure than a square one, but I secretly wonder if they weren’t just getting heartily sick of the idea of piling and re-piling up stones at some point and  thought, ” let’s see if we can get this square  house to sit on  the round foundation that’s already there, then we won’t need all the hard work of taking the old stones away, just to rebuild them straight away in a different shape!“

Either way, I’m guessing there aren’t too many houses in the world that sport a square house on a round foundation?

Just proves you CAN get a  square peg into a round hole if you try hard enough.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Playing the Paris Game…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Each time we are on the Paris ring road, we play a game.

I’ve played the game for almost 18 years now,  many times: usually whilst travelling with Himself, on one occasion with a van load of  New Zealand friends visiting,  and now finally with my own children.

The game is called “spot le Tour Eiffel”  and is basically involves scanning the expanse of the Paris skyline until one of us successfully spots the Eiffel Tour.

For some reason it’s appears to be harder to see it if you are travelling north to south on the ring road, and easier to see it if you are travelling south to north, often it can only be glimpsed for fleeting moments and the rolling contours of the city do not make it easy.

Paris is a vast city, the ring road takes you down into tunnels, dips and bumps, a sort of semi subterranean motorway that weaves in and out of the overpasses, coming up for air at  bridges and where on-ramps and off-ramps are constantly appearing at odd moments.

Tens of thousands of cars changing lanes, and maneuvering around you are the norm, you need patience and wits to drive the Paris ring road.

Himself is concentrated on getting us through the maze,  I’ve introduced the kids to the Game, and each desperately wants to be first to see le Tour Eiffel, this will be their first ever glimpse of it.

I spot it first and nonchalantly say ” Did I see something over there maybe?” and point at a specific spot, Kiwi Daughter is quickest to see it next closely followed by Little Mr, but they are quick to squabble about who was really the one to have seen it first.

I’ll admit that I cheated a bit, because first in the front passenger seat I have the best view, and secondly I have the DSLR in my hands and have been periodically  using it’s superior telephoto to look further into the distance than is fair to the other players.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Kiwi Daughter has a tiny camera with half the zoom capability and Little Mr has nothing but his eyes and is at a further disadvantage because he’s far shorter and his eye level is probably closer to the  edge of the traffic barriers than to many objects higher up.

He does however manage to spot traffic police motorbikes remarkably quickly indeed.

Little boys appear to have radar for these things.

As an added bonus not only do we score le Tour Eiffel this time, but also far into the distance but crystal clear, De Basilique du Sacré-Cœur.

We also spot some interesting art installations on the ring road and, as we near the northern end of the city, the River Seine.

Tonight we have luck, we manage to move far more than we stand still, and like a tiny red blood cell being drawn into beating heart, we are sucked up into the artery and discharged into the northern outskirts a while later. Time to hunt for a bed.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)