Gouda

Saturday found us docked in Rotterdam.  We decided to take the excursion to Gouda (pronounced Howda with a guttural H).  And no, they do not make the cheese here.  At least, not anymore.

 Gouda is a charming small town.  The streets are narrow and now decorated with flags in honor of the King's coronation coming at the end of April.  Everything will be orange that day.

At the center of town is the town hall.

The town hall was built in 1603.  So large it does not fit in the picture completely. 

The homes of the people are very small.  Our guide lives in a 500 sq ft home.  Just think about that compared to our homes in USA.  So they shop almost every day.   Above is a typical cheese shop and below is a typical butcher shop.  You do not find this sort of thing in every town in America but here in the Netherlands it is quite common.

Every Saturday there is a market set up in the town square where they sell all sorts of things.  This is the flower shop but there were clothing shops, cheese shops, etc.  The people ride their bikes into the center to shop.

 Our main purpose of the visit to Gouda was to see the Church of St. John the Baptist.  This is now a Protestant Church but was originally a Catholic Church.  The stain glass windows were taken down and boxed during WWII.  Some of them did not survive but most did.  The organ is a 4000 pipe organ.

The pews are elevated so the people in the last pews can still see the pulpit.  The seats in the old days were heated by hot rocks under them.  Now they are heated with electric heat.  The aisle is one of the longest in the Netherlands.

After the Church visit we were able to walk about the town for about 45 minutes.  We came upon this calliope during our walk.

The man drove it about the town and played great music.  I took a video of it and will try and upload it later.  It just takes too long now.

As it was cold, we stopped for coffee and I got a hot chocolate.  This was served as hot milk with a stick and on the end of the stick was a lump of solid chocolate.  You put the stick of chocolate in the milk and it melts and then put the whipped cream on top.  YUMMY.

We returned to Rotterdam and lunch on the boat.  Will tell about the afternoon in another post.  Have to get ready for our excursion today.