Taphophile Tragics # 6

I continue with the graves in the Old Church in Amsterdam of my previous post .

This well decorated grave is of a prominent person of his time. The text  I will try to translate, it is "old dutch"

Under this stone rests

Petrus van Dam

in his 85 years was

Lawyer of the General

East-India Company

54 years had

marriage first with Lidia van Segwaer

afterwards with

Anna Hasselaer

passed away

17 May 1706

So this man reached a respectable age of 85 years in 1706 and was married twice. It was a time of much prosperity and wealth in the Netherlands just after, which is know as "the Golden Century". Many ships sailed to the East for trading the products of Indonesia and sell them here to other countries. They colonialised Indonesia which made the dutch very rich and the many beautiful canal houses date from that time.

This is my tribute to Taphophile Tragics

Monday Mural, Almere

The entrance to our village by bus is a rather boring business area with buildings without windows. It was a paradise for graffiti painters but not the best ones. It was a mess with all kind of paintings and characters over each other. Some clever business people decided to invite a group of graffiti painters to make an offer, design something artistic and we pay for the paint. The result is spectacluar as you can see here.

It is endless could hardly get it in one picture.

Here you can see how it looked like before. This building still has to be decorated, the grey paint has been applied to remove all the messy stuff.

See for more Monday Murals here

Amsterdam by night

We had diner in a nice restaurant in Amsterdam last night and I tried my best to make some evening pictures.

It was rather cold 3C (37.4F)  but the big freeze will come end of this week. The specialists prognoses are -16C (3.2F) at night and -6C (21.2F) at day. Brrrrr.

Streetview.

In winter most people wear dark colours, but the tramway which used to be grey too some time ago has bright colours now.

Skywatch Friday

A view at Almere City on a sunny winterday.

See for more Skywatch pictures here

Cold?

The weather forecast for this weekend we will have freezing cold temperatures, can't believe it. I saw yesterday daffodils blooming  along the road. Nature is quite confused here because of the high temperatures. Maybe this coat will be sold after all although it is fake fur. When you wear real fur in the streets today you risk to get paint over it from the anti fur movement.

Stairway to heaven?

In the "Old Church" which I mentioned yesterday, is an exhibition of pupils of the art academy. This must be a stairway to heaven don't you think?

Mice are everywhere even in churches.

Taphophile Tragics # 5

The "Old Church" is  the oldest church in Amsterdam and dates from 1300. It is no longer in use as a church but as an exhibition place. The floor is covered with very old grave-stones and many of them are beautiful decorated but a bit declined because of the many footsteps in all the past years. I will show you the grave stones later but will now focus on one special grave.

I have described the church before here

One of the best known people who is buried here is Saskia van Uylenburgh born in 1612 and died in 1642. She was born as the daughter of a Frisian mayor. She did not marry an academic, but became the wife of painter Rembrandt van Rijn, who was the son of a wealthy miller from Leiden. In the course of her life she was his model for some of his paintings, drawings and etchings.

Saskia was orphaned by age 12 and raised by her sister Hiskje and her husband and later by another sister Antje who died young. In 1634 she married Rembrandt and moved to Amsterdam. Rembrandt gained financial success through his artwork and bought a house in the Jodenbreestreet which is a museum now, the Rembrandthouse

Selfportrait of Rembrandt

Three of their children died shortly after birth and were buried in the nearby Zuiderchurch. The sole survivor was Titus, who was named after his mother's sister Titia. Saskia died the year after he was born, aged 29 in 1642,  probably from tuberculosis and was buried in the "Oude Kerk" (Old Church).

This a my tribute to Taphophile Tragics

Monday Mural

This mural has been painted by artists who had squat this house in the eighties in de Spuistreet in Amsterdam. For a long time it was not clear what would happen with this building and some others in the same street. They were empty so all kind of persons started to live here clandestine and in 1987 this serpent was painted.  Now the city council has decided to renovate the neighbourhood and the mural will be removed.

This post is linked to Monday Mural

Tulips from Amsterdam

As I came around the corner yesterday, I was surprised to see Dam-square in Amsterdam had changed in a sea of tulips. Normally crowded with tourists and living statues it looked like "the Keukenhof" now.

 It was a present of the tulip-horticulture to attract attention to their product. Everybody was free to take the tulips home.

When something is for free people don't have to think twice to take it.

It was fun to see the disbelieve on the faces of the people it was for free and then the fun everybody had picking a bundle of tulips in the middle of the wintertime. Winter has still not arrived here, high tempertures and lots of rain.

Speedy

I often see photos on blogs which are very blurry and I should never had posted, but the comments are mostly very positive. This one I consider as not "blog worthy" and wanted to delete, but I hesitate and am curious what the comment are.

Take a ride

Last weekend we had sunny weather and beautiful skies so we drove to Amsterdam. I was sitting next to the chauffeur, my hubby, with my camera and decided to make pictures from the roads we were driving. So I invite you to drive along with me from Almere to Amsterdam.

Passing the bridge over the Amsterdam-Rhine canal. Last year it has been widened into a four lane motorway to have the traffic an easier run through.

Trains are passing by along the road.

We pass the new suburb of Amsterdam "IJburg" with the new spectacular bridge.

We noticed the motorcyclist was wearing slippers, it was freezing cold!

Entering the Piet Heintunnel.

The tunnel is 1900 metres long.

Leaving the tunnel you are right in the centre of Amsterdam with new office-buildings. The three tables with beehives hanging on top is a piece of art. This area used to be a harbour quarter and is complete renovated.

The glass building is a cruiseship terminal and the high building a hotel.

The Central Train Station with the new Bus-terminal right above.

And here the ride ends. Hope you enjoyed.

For more skies have a look at Skywatch Friday

Carriage

As in many big cities in Europe you can make a horse-ride with carriage through Amsterdam. I have mixed feelings about this because the Amsterdam traffic is so very crowded, with cars, tramways, busses, scooters, bikes all in one road. The poor horse has to mingle in this hectic traffic just for what, to give a few tourists a better look?  I think it is a risky, needless business.

Watery Wednesday

What to do with the christmas-tree after Christmas, well you throw it in the canal. Interesting object for the swans.

This post is linked to Watery Wednesday

Taphophile Tragics # 4

The grave of Elvis Presley at his estate Graceland in Memphis.

Elvis wanted a quiet place in his garden to get some rest and he had a Meditation Garden made. That is the place where he now is laid to rest with his parents and his grandmother.

The grave of his twin brother who died at birth.

I visited Graceland in 2008 and was quiet excited to see everything you always have heard and read of in reality. I am not a great Elvis fan so it was not a pelgrimage for me, but it was interesting to see where he had lived. The graves are not that bombastic as I had expected and despite the many tourists it was rather peaceful.

This is my tribute to Taphophile Tragics

Explorers

In the 16th and 17th Century the dutch started to explore the world by ship to find overseas countries and products. With the simple geographical maps they had, they reached Indie, the current Indonesia, which became a dutch colony until 1948. There was a South-way or a North-way to reach the goal.

These buildings are situated in the so called "explorer" area in Amsterdam and the walls have  historical murals.

I had never seen these and was blown away by the beauty of it. The last picture is of "Willem Barents" who went the North-way and got stuck in the ice with his ship on the Northpole at Nova Zembla and had to hibernate there. He didn't survive but a few of his crew did. The dutch directer Reinoud Oerlemans  has just  made a movie of this adventure.

 

Weekend Reflections

After all the rain we had lately with submerged areas, we finaly have some quiet sunny weather. Temperatures are still very high for wintertime 8C (46.4F). This office is nearly having wet feet, which gives a nice reflection. See for more reflections here.

Closing time

Closing time at the market.

And the remains.

The statue you can  see in the first photo is of a famous Amsterdam teacher "Theo Thijssen" with a pupil. He wrote many nice books about schoollife in the poor years of the early 20th Century. He was a socialistic politician as well. You can have a better look of the statue here

Advertising Pillar

In the early 20th Century many of these pillars were placed in Dutch cities. It is a transformer box with the look of an advertising pillar. The outside of the pillar is for rent with advertisement posters. In this way the electricity company can earn some extra  money. In the beginning they were made of steal but now of concrete. In popular language the dutch people call them "pepperboxes".

At the left side you see another one. The advertisement posters must have a cultural character as performances or exhibitions.

  

Narrow shop

The narrowest shop in Amsterdam "the Small Trip-house" , 2.44 meters wide, at the Kloveniersburgwal. There is a nice legend about this house.

In the 17th century two brothers, Lodewijk and Hendrik Trip, who were very wealthy arms mercheants, built a grand canal-house for themselves on the Kloveniersburgwal. It was the largest house at that time. According to the legend one of the brothers heard a servant say that he wished he had  a house as wide as their front-door. Then the eccentric Trip brother built the "Small Trip-house" for the lucky servant on the other side of the same canal. It is a nice story but probably not true, the big house was completed in 1662 and the small one in 1696, the two brothers were already dead by then.

You probably are curious what kind of shop there is, well it is situated in the "Red Light District" area, so they call themselves a "sexy avant-garde" fashion shop.