Today's distance: 56km (35 Miles)
Our hostess, Marleen, served us another wonderful Dutch breakfast and gave us some recommended places to visit nearby. One of Mummies, the other of the oldest working Planetarium in the world.
So, off we went with our loaded down Bike Friday's under blue Friesian skies to find some mummies first. It was in a little village called Wiuwert at the main church. Some carpenters who were working on the church in 1765 found these old caskets in the basement with well preserved natural mummified bodies. Only 4 of the 11 remained in tact are now still on display in the basement of the church. There were "no pictures" signs up so us being good rule followers obeyed nicely. I did take a picture of the English version of the handout that was handed to us and posted it below (hopefully you can read it), including a picture swiped off another website of the mummies. I will say it was pretty eerie in that basement. Linda and I were the only visitors at the time..
The other part of the story is about this Labadist religious sect that was around that village at the time. Obviously some strange "birds"! William Penn (founder of the Quakers and Pennsylvania fame) visited the village at one point and found that these Labadisten had apparently carried religious freedom a little too far For his taste. The Labadisten eventually disappeared in the early 1700's.
We decided not to look at houses for sale in Wiuwert, but instead pushed on with our bikes into a fairly strong, and much cooler North-West wind. On towards Franeker where Eise Eisinga built one of the first models of how the solar system works in 1781, which still operates accurately today. We arrived a little early in Franeker about an hour before the museum opened, so went into this really neat bakery where we ordered some delicious sandwiches. This was a deluxe bakery with many baked sweets and desserts as well. We managed to control ourselves and only left with a couple high calorie choices of nutrition for later down the road. We feel that we should name our blog "Eating our way through Holland...". Don't think we are burning near as many calories as we have consumed. Oh, well... we blame it all on the delicious food..
We were promptly at the door of the Planetarium when it opened at 1pm. Really amazing feat this wool comber (someone preparing wool to be ready for the loom) did building a complete moving replica of the Solar system! Got a personalized tour in English which Linda greatly appreciated, even though her Dutch is getting better by the day! The model not only shows the planets and their position relative to the earth, it also has a date calendar, when the moon and sun rises, etc. All driven off a single mechanism that drives many gears and spindles all hand made. The planet Saturn is on a sprocket that only does a full rotation every 29 years! He was a absolute genius with very little formal education. I didn't find any good English language websites telling more but here is one from Wikipedia: Eise Eisinga
We rode out of Franeker and were passed by another Bike Friday! He was from Leewarden and was very interested where we came from since there are not too many of these bikes in Europe. We had to part ways since he was going home and were going further north to a little town called Burdaard, where our next B&B is located. We really have loved staying in these B&B's so far! You really get to connect more with real Dutch people in that region who absolutely will do anything to make your stay comfortable and share some interesting information of the area. It is a good deal too since we get a big breakfast included, and we are all in it for the food! We like to camp, but....
Arrived at the nice B&B which right on the canal where the Elfstedenstocht skating race takes place (not that often lately unfortunately). Ok enough for now, good night!
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| Route through Friesland |
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| Basement with mummies.. Luckily open this Monday! |
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| More info about the mummies and Labadisten |
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| Mummy postcard.. |
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| Labadist ring leader.. |
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| Real Frisian residents relaxing watching us struggle into the wind |
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| Lunch room that featured photos and other items relating to the Frisian sport of Kaatsen. I have no idea what the rules are.. |
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| The bakery.. Why can't we have one of these in Oriental? Maybe I should forward this pic to the owner of Town&Country and ask her to reinvent her business to be like this.. Ok, I know I am being unrealistic.. |
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| Yes, chocolates too! |
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| The oldest working planetarium in the world. |
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| Linda and Eise.. |
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| The ceiling of his living room with the sun and planets. |
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| Dial showing when the moon rises |
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| One is the date calendar The new dial showing the year has to be painted for the next 22 years. Eise planned for that by having the mechanism swap in a new dial automatically once every 22 years! Kind of like an old phonograph player. The other dial shows when the sun rises and it's position in the sky. |
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| The top one shows the phase of the moon. The one below is when the moon sets. |
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| Picture and plaque of some of the gear work he had to build by hand in the attic above their living room ceiling. Absolutely amazing! |
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| Franeker town hall across from the planetarium |
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| Interesting little building in Franeker. |
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| We were being entertained on our way to Burdaard. |
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| The canal next to our B&B in Burdaard. It is also the canal where the Elfstedenstocht skaters would skate on to the next town. |
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