No Delft Blues Here!

We spent today (July 17) touring the western town of Delft. Like Brugge, it's just an incredibly beautiful small town/city, perfect for walking and wandering. Delft is the hometown of the famous painter Johannes Vermeer, of "Girl with a Pearl Earring" fame. It's also home to the famous Delft Blue earthenware. And of course, what would a Dutch city be without a series of beautiful canals?

Two kerks dominate the town centre - the Oude Kerk behind the boys (1240 AD) and the Nieuw Kerk (1380s). Again, Pisa's not the only town with a leaning tower, just the one with the best PR firm. The Oude Kerk's tower leans rather scarily over the canal! Inside the Oude Kerk is the gravestone and mausoleum of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, one of the pioneers of microscopes and seeing the incredible world previously unseen.
Another very famous person buried in Delft, with a mausoleum in the Nieuw Kerk, is Prince William of Orange, who led the rebellion against the Spaniards ruling the Netherlands. This was part of the 80 years war, and we saw a good bit of it detailed at the Prinsenhof Museum. At the Prinsehof itself was St. Agatha's Convent, where William was murdered by a Catholic. Those are the bullet holes from the assassin's (Balthazar Gerrard) pistols there from July 10, 1584.

At least the Dutch are more original with their souvenirs than some other places we've been to on this trip. Looks like they've raided the town's attics to collect old strap-on ice skates on the left, and the giant clog on the right can double as a bobsled!
Also found this rather cool cheese shop on the main Markt. All sorts of pretty exotic cheeses, including green pesto and red pesto cheese, smoked cheese with chili, and all sorts of goat and sheep cheese. The boys tried some samples, then tried the old "dine and dash" routine with a cartload of cheese!

Mannheim

Since our main focus in Mannheim was going to the Lego competition, we spent a lot of time at the Rosengarten convention centre but  we did find some time to wander around the city. The University is housed in very beautiful buildings, part of which was once the castle.  The nearby Jesuit church was being prepared for a wedding when we stopped in for a look and indeed it was an excellent June day for a wedding. The flowers in the parks were lovely.

We found the Angel of Peace sculpture "Friedensengel" by Gerhard Marcks which was removed from it's more prominent spot beside the Jesuit Church and hidden away in a non-tourist area (Mannheim, E6). It was created in 1952 to commemorate all those people who died violent deaths during the Nazi regime.  There is another memorial beside the Angel but it is only a dark block of rock and we didn't even realize we missed it until we were reading later.

We also found the Holocaust Memorial that is located in an equally strange place. It is right on the sidewalk of the ParadePlatz but it consists of a clear glass cube with names that are written so you would have to be on the inside to read. There is no identifying plaque and no one walking along this busy street even stops to consider it. There was supposed to be a plaque in the sidewalk, but we couldn't find it; maybe it was covered up by the construction boarding that was also placed along the sidewalk.

Mozart spent time in  Mannheim and that is being commemorated by a summer music festival advertised by these hot pink deer statues. Not sure about the design of these, but you can't miss noticing them.

Near the conference centre is a horseshoe shaped park dominated by the massive "water tower" (der Wasserturm).  The fountains, waterfalls,  and green arbours made this a very restful place in the centre of the city and it was a popular spot for wedding shots on Saturday afternoon. 

Lego Robotics Competition

From June 7-10 we went to Mannheim Germany to see our friends the Ferriers, who had made a Lego robotics team called the Robo-Raptors. On June 7 we took 7 trains, and got to Mannheim Germany then we found the man we were renting the apartment from (he was pretty friendly) and then he showed us the apartment and we went and got some pita gyros and bubble tea (very cultural dinner I call it.)

Then on June 8 we went to Heidelberg and Zach got a nice hat then we went to mannheim and we found the place where the competition was, it was right beside the water tower. on the first day there was the presentation the core values and the competition. On the second day there was just the competition and in the finals it was China vs Japan and they played each other twice, on the first round China got about 260 and Japan got 96 on the second round china got 200 and some thing and japan got 100 and something, you could see that Japan was really flustered. At the end of the competition all the players from the teams were trading T-Shirts and things. then we went out for dinner with the Ferriers and had pizza then we went home. June 10 today we went on 6 trains and got home to Netherlands safely.

The Pantheon - home of all the gods

The Pantheon (Pan=all; theo=god) is a Roman temple for all of the gods. Tiberius, one of the Roman emperors and later another emperor wanted to put Jesus in the Pantheon as well as the Roman gods, but the Roman Senate did not approve of that. The Pantheon was made with 2 types of architecture mixed together, it had the columns in the front of the building and the building itself had a dome.

The Pan-photos of Rome!

Housed in the Pantheon now is the grave of the famous painter Raphael Sanzio (right), and the first two Italian kings (along with many other people, the Pantheon is like a graveyard because all around the edge are graves). The dome is 142 ft high and 142 ft in diameter, and was the inspiration for many famous cathedral domes like St. Peter's Basilica (Michelangelo) and St. Paul's Cathedral in London. There is a hole at the very top of the dome, and the floor drains when it rains. The columns outside the Pantheon are also enormous, and the whole thing is still original from Roman times!

Right next to the Pantheon is a church that looks pretty plain (Daddy's colleague Laura says it's the "Roman" style) on the outside, except for another Egyptian obelisk (this time on an elephant) that the Romans took from Egypt. But inside, the church was big (no church can claim to be "really" big after seeing St. Peter's!) and featured Christ the Redeemer by Michelangelo (right).

St Peter's Basilica

On Monday (May 8) we went to Vatican City (country #15!) and St. Peter's Basilica. We were hoping to go to the Vatican Museum, but the lineup was so long that it went along the Vatican walls almost to St. Peter's Basilica (>1 km!). Daddy took the picture here during his February visit. We walked up all the 551 steps to the top of the St. Peter's dome, designed by Michelangelo and inspired by the massive Pantheon dome built by the Romans.

Our Roman Holiday

From the top there was a great view of the area around (we also though we saw the CN and Eiffel towers!).

After that we went into the Basilica itself. It's massive - each of the side naves were as big as other big churches! Remember the last blog about the words and letters? Around the whole basilica there are giant mosaics of all the words that Jesus said to Peter in the bible, and the letters are 7 feet tall! The letters were black and around them there was a gold outline.

Also in the Basilica were some bodies of dead popes who had been well preserved like Pope Innocent XI and Pope John XXIII (on the left), while most of them were actually below in the crypts.

Housed in St. Peter's is the famous Pieta sculpture by Michelangelo, of Mary holding Jesus after he had been crucified. There are many other sculptures and paintings in St. Peter's but the Pieta is by far the most famous. Next to it is one door that the Pope only opens once every 25 years for one year. At Christmas Eve he ceremonially opens the door and the next he plasters it up. The next time it will be opened is Dec 24, 2024 - mark your calendars!

The guy this whole place is named after, St. Peter. The Basilica is built at the site where Peter was crucified by the Romans (upside down as per his wishes, as he felt he was unworthy to be crucified as Jesus was). He is most often depicted with keys, symbolizing the keys to Christianity. The statue on the right is bronze and inside the Basilica, and the right foot is constantly kissed and rubbed by pilgrims, so it's pretty shiny.

 Everything is just BIG in St. Peter's Basilica. See the altar (up close on the right)? It's bronze and it's 7 stories high!

More big things at the Basilica. The left shows the shrine to the last Pope, John Paul II, who died in 2005. The painting goes almost the whole way up the whole huge wall, which is just unbelievably big. And speaking of big, check out the angels behind us!

St. Peter's - The Dome!

OK, St. Peter's Basilica and Square are soooo big and amazing that we need a couple of blogs. It's much easier and quicker to get into than the Vatican Museum, which is where the Sistine Chapel is. How bad is the VM lineup? At 1000h, it stretched along the Vatican walls pretty much the whole kilometre to the Piazza San Pietro! In addition to the Pope-mobile, the whole Vatican is guarded by the Swiss Guards with their very sharp and pointy pikes, not to mention their court jester outfits.

Roman Holiday

Jacob in the middle of the Piazza, me balancing on top of a concrete pylon in front of the huge obelisk in the centre of the round piazza. The piazza is surround by over a hundred columns, each adorned with prophets and saints. The Pope blesses the masses on Sundays and Wednesdays, so don't expect to get anywhere near those days!

This blog, we'll focus on the dome created by, who else, Michelangelo. It was inspired by the amazing Pantheon dome (see future blog). The scale of things in the Basilica is really, really mind-boggling. These photos are from the base of the dome looking down into the church to the smaller side naves, each of which are bigger than all but the biggest cathedrals in the world! Zach will tell you how what and how big those letters you see are in the next blog - give it a good guess in the meantime!

Again at the base of the dome itself. It's all mosaic tiles on the whole dome!

From the base of the dome, it's another 300+ steps to the top. We're not holding the camera at an angle on the left - the interior of the dome is on our right and it gets really slanted and tricky to walk inside! Once at the top, you get a pretty amazing view of all of Rome, including the Piazza below where the people are just itty-bitty-specks.

Colloseum

After Tuscany, we spent a few days in Rome before continuing to the Netherlands. On Sunday (May 6) we went to the Collosseo. The Colloseo was built on top of the place where Emperor Nero's house once was, but they built it over top to show how much they disliked Nero. We got our tickets at the Palatine Hill because there was the shortest (zero) lineup there. The ticket was combined for the Colloseo (or Colosseum in English), the Foro (Forum) and Palatino Hill (Palatine Hill). So when we got to the Colloseo we just jumped through the huge long lineup getting tickets there and went straight in!
Roman Holiday!

About 50,000 people could sit in the Colloseo. All 50,000 seats could be filled in less than 15 minutes by the 80 entry ways. There's the postcard photo attempt on the left, and us inside on the south end on the right.

The Emperor had private seats and entry all for himself on the north end on the ground floor (right side of left photo). The nine Vestal Virgins had seats directly opposite on the south. The entry was free but to get in you had to have a ticket, which was a piece of clay with your seat number on it. There's a couple of circus performers on the right.

The official name of the Colloseo was actually the Flavian Amphitheatre, as they were the emperors that built it. What you see here are the underground "backstage." This is where all the prisoners, wild animals, gladiators, and stage sets would be. The actual stage is on top in line with the ground floor of spectators. It was a wood floor with nine inches of sand on top (sand is "arena" in Latin, which is where we get that word from). The performers would be hoisted up to the arena with trap doors and elevators.

The actual show is pretty gruesome. Prisoners, slaves, and others would be killed by wild animals from all over the empire, or else forced to dress up as famous people from history or mythology and killed. Then the animals would also be killed by hunters or gladiators, and of course then there's the gladiator battles themselves. Makes hockey seem tame!