Aug 27 (Wednesday) – Ceramics and Giethoorn

We started the day with a visit to the Princessehof Ceramics Museum in Leewarden.  Part of the museum is in a small 17^th century palace built by Marie Louise, Dowager Princess of Orange.  The exhibits covered a wide range of ceramics. 

Some of the most interesting were art pieces made from the shards of broken porcelain and pottery.  Most of these were by the Dutch ceramicist Bouke de Vries.

The Memory Vessels were pieces of broken pottery that were contained within a glass vessel of the original size and shape of the pieces within.

There was also an interesting piece called Battle Among Shards.  This was a large banquet table with plate set around (commanding officers frequently held a dinner the night before a battle).  Spread along the center of the table were thousands of shards with a few vignettes.  And the centerpiece was a mushroom cloud. 

Another huge display was called Animals from Near and Beyond. 

And there was an entire section dedicated to broken and deconstructed figures of Guan Yin (Chinese name for Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion (Goddess of mercy, kindness, and fertility in both Buddhism and Taoism). 

One was even depicted as Marge Simpson, from the long running cartoon, The Simpsons .  So creative.  

A large room covered in beautiful Asian wallpaper...

that housed many old Asian porcelain and ceramic pieces.

There were sections with art nouveau...

and other more modern styles of ceramics.

Not everything was ceramics.  There was a large display of embroidered pieces that recreated Vermeer’s “Young Woman with a Water Pitcher”.  They were all done by different artists so they all looked a bit different. 

And there was this beautiful glass piece. 

And so many other types of ceramics.

Made from Russian Porcelain 

Occasionally there would be a pile of broken ceramic shards in a corner, along with a broom or dustpan.  Interesting bit of fun art.

In the basement was an Escher Exhibit.  Maurits Escher was a Dutch graphic artist born in Leewarden.  He is known for his unusual perspectives and impossible constructions.  Where a school of fish transforms into a flock of birds or a building with stairs leading to impossible places.

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More Princessehof Ceramics Museum
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From there we drove to the small village of Giethoorn, known as “The Venice of The Netherlands”.  Our first stop was for lunch at a restaurant right on the main canal of the village.  We could enjoy lunch while we watched the crowd of boats working its way through the canal. Mary asked for ice with her soda.  She got one cube.  They don't do ice much in Europe.

We then got pretty lost while Erwin tried to find our bed and breakfast for the night.  We finally found it and unloaded our luggage into the unit.  While the unit is fine it is located a long way from the old part of Giethoorn, which was very disappointing as we had hoped to spend time wandering the town in the evening when most of the tourists had gone home.  But we are too far to walk so guess we will miss that opportunity.

We then were driven to a boat dock where we caught our private boat ride through the canals.  The boat is electric (as are all the tourist boats on the canals) so the ride was quiet and peaceful.  The main canal is very narrow, so all boat traffic is one way.  And most of the boats were boats-for-hire, so were being driven by tourists.  Some had a bit of an issue managing their boat. 

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Video of part of the cruise
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There were a lot of bridges. 

And a lot of lovely homes overlooking the canal.

About halfway through the ride our driver docked, and we got you and walked along the canals.  

There are a lot of tourists and lots of souvenir shops and cafes.  And there were lots of flowers.

The canal has a lot of foot bridges over it leading to private homes.

And there were small side canals that were very pretty but seemed to lead to nowhere (or maybe to other homes).

On the way back to the boat we stopped and had an ice cream. 

Back on the boat we continued on along the canal until it emptied into a very large lake.  The lake had dozens of swans…a lovely addition to a lovely view. 

We eventually ended back on the main canal and took it us to a junction where we turned off and headed down a much larger canal…

and eventually out of the old town to a large canal and back to our dock.

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More Geithoorn
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It was dinner time, so we had dinner at the restaurant by the dock.  It was owned by the same operation that ran the private boat tours.  Then it was back to our Bed and Breakfast for the night.