You're Never Lost If You Don't Care Where You Are: The Trip that was: September 29, 2008/2010/2012/2013/2014/2016/2017/2019

2008

Back in Haarlem, again with St. Bavokerk. This time, we're inside. The Dutch are big on cannon balls embedded in walls. Like this one from 1573, lodged in the church wall during a siege of Haarlem by the Spanish during the Eighty Year war.

The outstanding feature, of the cathedral is the gorgeous pipe organ that I told you about before. The one that Handel and Mozart made trips to the Netherlands just to play.

The primary reason I had for visiting the church was to pay my respects to Frans Hals, who is, in my opinion, the greatest of the Dutch Golden Age painters.

We end this day with a very random photo. When art imitates life. Dutchboy's friend, brilliant artist Michael Field, painted this portrait of Dutchboy. It's the first image I saw of him, since we met online and I had no idea what he looked like. He told me it was one of the few pictures he had of himself. Isn't that romantic? Rather like in Elizabethan times, when portraits were sent to perspective brides and grooms. And yes, he still wears socks with sandals, despite my best efforts to stop it.

2010

Alkmaar. Known for it's famous cheese market, which I have NEVER seen, but I know it as the greatest canal tour you can take and for this incredible building, De Waag, Alkmaar.

They also have a cannon ball lodged in a house, also from the Spanish siege. Go figure.

The canal cruise in Alkmaar is worth a trip to the city!! The bridges are so low, you have to lay down in bottom of the boat to get under. We had the BEST time with our friends, ducking down. We spent the entire cruise laughing.

Told you it was low!!

VERY low!!

The motley crew who laughed too loud on the entire trip!

Prettiest moppets in Alkmaar that day!

Then we headed to the beach at Bergen aan Zee.

2012

Texel. Gorgeous sky on a gorgeous day.

Every lighthouse tour should include a wax figure on the toilet. Keepers gotta go, too.

This is a quiet area. Do not shout.

Scaring the nephews. Dutchboy is very good at it.

2013

Paris.

Heading to Montmartre, and all the treasures there.

The Sacre Coeur. So beautiful and stately sitting atop it's high hill, looking over the city. And the funicular that takes you to the top of that incredibly steep hill was broken the day we went and we had to climb the steps.

Moulin Rouge!! Alas, no Satine and Christine, no Toulouse-Lautrec. Just a red windmill, and lots of sex shops in the area.

I insisted on going to Pere LaChaise cemetery. I had to pay my respects to Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde. But it is truly a huge, awe-inspiring place filled with such sad beauty. You can spend hours wandering, and be completely lost in maze of masoleums, beautiful markers, and crypts so old they're open and crumbling. It is a place to spook yourself, the spirits seem to walk with you after awhile. I'm fairly certain one tried to leave with me, the spirit of an older gentleman. Don't ask me how I know-- he was just there-- and I knew it? Dutchboy thought I was insane when, upon reaching the gates to leave Pere LaChaise, I turned and told the Mr. Spirit that I enjoyed the walk but he couldn't come with me beyond the gates. Dutchboy may be right--I might be insane. But it didn't hurt to say it, just in case!!

The grave of Jim Morrison, Mr. Mojo Risin. There was an odd assortment of people clustered around. No one spoke. A couple of them smoked cigarettes and wore sunglasses. I stood there an silently wept. I wasn't prepared for that. His music meant so much to me, a shared bond with my sister who had passed. I wanted to share with her that I had made a pilgrimage, and I couldn't. Silly maybe, but it was part of my teenage years, this introduction to The Doors. And in my early twenties, the publishing of Morrison's poetry that spoke to me.

And this was written on a tree root, near his grave.

The grave of Edith Piaf. Dutchboy insisted on finding it, and spent part of the trip singing La Vie en Rose.

The grave of Oscar Wilde. Also an odd experience. What you don't really see in this photo is that the lower part of the grave is blocked by plexiglass, to keep people from kissing it. Apparently, they put on red lipstick and kiss the grave so much, it became almost impossible to clean. So they blocked it. As you see, it didn't stop it, because people found a way to climb and do it anyway. Even using the nearby monuments as step ladders. This is why we can't have nice things, even in death.

The Eiffel Tower at night! We took our ride up the tower at 11:00 pm! To see the city aglow. Mostly what we saw was fog.

A couple of videos, to share the Eiffel Experience.

2014

This was my fourth, and only successful!, attempt to see the Zaanse Schans. Along the River Zaan, this collection of windmills and buildings is a recreation of life in 18th and 19th centuries, and includes bakeries, cheese makers, workshops, barns, and lots of windmills. And the Zaanse Mustard is my favorite mustard, ever!!!

My impression of a windmill!

2016

Schonbrunn Palace. A place of utter magnificence!

Surveying his kingdom. Tis good to be King.

The double-headed eagle of the Austria-Hungarian Empire and the House of Hapsburg.

Y'all come back now, ya here!

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. There are simply not enough words to describe this building. My jaw hit the floor. I almost fell off the stairs trying to take photos. I didn't capture it adequately. It is completely overwhelming. Opulent isn't a strong enough word for it. I went to see the artwork on the building itself that was done by Gustav Klimt. Klimt was, after all, the artist that started me on this journey to Vienna, and the artist that inspired my boy Egon Schiele. He deserves every ounce of admiration that anyone can muster for him.

I'm all but squeeing in glee in this picture. I've seen 26 Vermeer paintings. Almost all of them. Including some in the Royal Collection of Britian, thanks to a special showing at Mauritshuis a few years ago.

You see this sometimes in museums, people painting, copying the great masters. I always find it fascinating since I can't paint an abstract painting much less anything that resembles anything life-like.