September 15th 2017 - Gouda

In the morning after several and many trips up and down the lethal stairs in order to unpack we went into town and had a look around and a coffee and cake - apple for me, lemon meringue for Jim. The coffee came with a side tiny glass with cream sitting in a liquer. It was lovely in the coffee. 

The town hall is very ornate.

Then we went into the church - De Sint Janskerk to see the lovely stained glass windows. The St. John's Church - the longest in the Netherlands - is a large Gothic Church and its stained glass windows are among the best post medieval religious art in the Netherlands. They depict scenes from the life of St. John the Baptist as well as other biblical scenes. It was spectacular!

I loved this really modern one.

I loved the paintings of the Stations of the Cross but I couldn't get any information about them.

 We noticed going into the church that there was a concert scheduled - violin and harp - and that we could get in free using our Church admission. So that was an idea for later.

This is the Goudse Waag where the cheese was weighed in the past. Today it houses the Cheese and Crafts Museum. On the ground floor there is the tourist office.



Below is a close up of the weighing of cheese from the panel above the door.

This is on the canal outside a pub on our way home.

This is our exchange house and, below, back garden.




On our way home we noticed a sign for Lidl so we sussed out there. When we got home we made our supermarket list and took the car to Hoogvliet which is not far away but you can take the car. It wasn’t a bad supermarket so we got sorted for dinner for 3 days. I did a washing but couldn’t put it outside because of the rain. So I had to use the tumble drier function.

We went into town to the Brasserie van Zalm for a meal - I had rib eye and Jim had pork. Both came with vegetables and smoked ham and gratin of potatoes. It was fine. 

Then we went to the concert. The violinist was Annemarie van Prooijen and the harpist was Heleen Bartels - she also sang to her own accompaniment. There was a screen behind them showing natural scenes that corresponded to the music. The first piece was lovely - Serenade by L.M. Tedeschi. The only piece I knew was Le Cygne by Massenet. Romance by J. Thomas was also nice. Some pieces were a bit drawn out. It was a beautiful location for a concert. There were only about 50 people there and I reckon we were the only foreigners. When we left it was lightly raining and I had neither umbrella nor hood. We had a 20 minutes walk and the rain got heavier and heavier - the last time I got so wet was at university! Anyway - I was glad we had gone.

The Town Hall at night.