Teyler Museum, Haarlem

If you're ever stranded in Haarlem for a month or six weeks and have completely run out of interesting things to do, check out the Teyler Museum. It's best described as a 19th century museum of mostly natural history, maintained to 19th century museum standards. Deliberately and meticulously. A large, open-to-the-public time capsule. If you're very much into the history of science or the history of museums (!), you might also enjoy it. Warning: limited interior illumination; closes at 5PM or whenever the sun goes down.

Entrance to the Teyler

Bear skeleton

Bone and fossil display cases

Ditto

Scientific instruments of yore

Part of the set from Frankenstein, (1932), Boris Karloff, Colin
Clive

Thus

Library

More display cases, minerals, rocks, etc.

Concave mirror; like Archimedes' reputed death
ray machine

A collection of 19th century magic trick boxes; a video--one
the museum's few concessions to the 20th century--showed their 
workings

More instruments

Facsimile prints of famous works at other museums

In one of the 2 or 3 painting galleries

I looked at a few scores of paintings, mostly Dutch, 19th
century, and saw not one name that I knew; I liked this
water-scape, however

A battery of Leyden Jars : hence the term
"battery"

Haarlem Scenes

We have been to Haarlem half a dozen times since we got here--well, the Ikea on the outskirts--but finally made it Wednesday to the old city. Our day there consisted of walking the old city and the big square, the Teyler Museum, the Grote Kerk, and the usual street snacks.

The Grote Kerk in the big city square

Old City Hall

Market, now museum

Butchers/tanners guild/market

Everywhere, something old, something beautiful

Local hero, invented movable type, did not
print the Bible

The local hero, for us, is Franz Hals, but we'll save his museum
for another day

Entrance to the Teyler Museum (next post)

Old and new canal houses

Shoppes built right into the Grote Kerk

Snack stop

On the way back to the central station

Street/shoppe scene

Particularly nice one

47th Anniversary Dinner

We'd already ascertained that Naarden had several fine restaurants--half a dozen, really--and so we scouted the best prospects for our 47th wedding anniversary dinner. Largely on the basis of the day's offerings, we chose a place called Fine, and celebrated there.

Fine; and it was, too

A rose for her, a Genever for me

The decor was, um, eclectic

A candle from our wedding, napkins from the reception

My bouillabaise appetizer

Her bruschetta with cole slaw and pulled pork; seriously

My baked scallops with leeks and mushrooms, and cornbread 
slivers 

Her steak

And frites and salad

Two courses were all we could handle of this repast

And we we ambled back slowly to our berth in JachtHaven

Naarden Grote Kerk

The Grote Kerk is at ground zero Naarden and is, on the outside, your standard dark red brick northern European Protestant structure. We had every expectation of seeing the standard stark yet severe blank white interior inside.

We walked in and--as we have been
trained in French cathedrals--looked up 

and whoa! what's that?! Apparently, the barrel-
vault wooden ceiling had been painted, prior
to the Reformation, then white-washed, and
then rediscovered and uncovered in a recent
renovation...what a treat!

The Judgement is over the chancel, and then each successive
bay contains both an Old Testament and a New Testament
depiction, the New, as always, showing how the Old Testament
is fulfilled

Thus, the mocking of Jesus/the mocking of Elisha

And, the Deposition (Jesus going into the tomb for 3 days)/
Jonah going into the fish for 3 days (the Deposition is known
to be a copy of a Durer print)

Organ and elevation; the church is known for
an annual performance of Bach's St. Mattthew
Passion

Vicki using a mirror to study the ceiling

Judgement

Heaven: in the most informative detail we have
yet scene, it appears that in Heaven girls have
to be fully clothed, boy, um, not so much

Hell

Neat place...no hint of which nor of Naarden generally was in
guidebook

Naarden Town

We spent a pleasant few hours walking around old Naarden, looking at the fort, the church (next post), and looking for a place to have dinner (next next post).

There

Judging from the shops, the homes, the cars parked out front,
it's not an impoverished place

Thus; unlocked, top-down

Now the museum of weights and measures

Thus

But, on this site, in 1572, Catholic Spanish troops summoned
the townspeople to hear a new peace proposal...and then
massacred them, shooting those they could, then burning the
building they had fled into...700 killed

The Utrecht Portal

City hall

More historic maps and photos

More great decorating ideas for city council chambers, Carole

More civic art

Roses in bloom everywhere

And more beautiful old buildings