FALL TEMPLE CLOSURE - SEPTEMBER 11 - 25. 2017 - THE NETHERLANDS, FRANCE & GERMANY

THE NETHERLANDS

     The Freiberg Temple closed for cleaning purposes September 11 - 25, 2017.  Bill and I decided to use the time visiting places in Europe that interested us. We started our trip by driving to The Hague, Netherlands.  Much to my sorrow, I knew that tulips wouldn't be blooming, but I wanted to visit The Hague Temple, Delft,  and Amsterdam.

THE GFELLER'S  HOME IN THE HAGUE

 We booked housing with a young family, last name Gfeller.  They own a new house that has a small parents suite attatched which includes a kitchen, sitting room, bedroom and bathroom.  We paid 50 Euros per night, and had a wonderful stay there for three nights. The Gfellers were so kind, and answered questions, and helped us get oriented. Our first activity was a visit to the Temple.    The Hague Temple is one of the church's smaller temples, but is situated on beautiful temple grounds.  The plants and flowers are simply gorgeous.  You walk over a water moat to get to the front door.  The temple president is from Highland, Utah, but speaks good Dutch.  His last name is Van Dam, so I think he has Dutch ancestry.

THE HAGUE TEMPLE

 He and his wife were so welcoming and kind to us.  We enjoyed our visit to the temple very much.  
     Delft, Holland is a beautiful small town, sometimes referred to as a mini-Amsterdam, even though it has a population of 100,000.  All of the sites to visit are located close together, so we enjoyed just walking around.  The important thing of Delft that I wanted to see was the process of making the porcelain that they are so famous for.  We stopped in a shop that sold Delft ware, but was also a place where a potter works, and a woman who painted the patterns on the pottery.  We were able to see, to a small degree, how the process works, and buy a few small pieces ( a spoon rest, and two Christmas ornaments.)  It is pretty expensive.

THE DELFTWARE SHOP.  IT'S BEAUTIFUL!

     We also took a canal cruise around town.  The water in the canals is very tranquil.  For this reason it is hard to keep algae from growing on the water.  Many of the canals were green with Algae.  We visited the gate to the old city of Delft in the 1400's.  The Golden Age of Delft was in the 1600's.  The artist, Vermeer, is a native son of Delft, and many of his paintings reflect scenes from Delft's everyday life.  William of Orange, a Dutch ruler,  is also a famous person buried in Delft, and his tomb is in the New Church there.  Every town in Europe has it's church, and they are mostly very old.  This New Church began construction in 1393.  1981 marked its 600th birthday.

DELFT CANAL ALGAE

     Amsterdam is a huge city.  Our goals were to visit the Anne Frank house, a canal cruise, and a visit to the Rijksmuseum, Holland's National Museum.
     We all know the story of Anne Frank, the young Jewish girl, who, with her family, hid in the back of the business where her father worked, for two years before being discovered by the German soldiers and sent to a concentration camp, where she died of Typhus.  Anne had a Mother, Father, and a sister, Margot.  She faithfully kept a journal of her life in hiding, and her goals for the future. We walked through the rooms where her Dad worked, and where they hid for so long, being helped by non Jewish friends who brought them food and supplies.  Only her father survived the concentration camp, and He it was who published her diary, which is now printed in 41 different languages.  It was very sobering to visit.

ANNE FRANK HOUSE IN AMSTERDAM

ANNE FRANK

 

  The canal cruise around Amsterdam was great.  Amsterdam has many, many canals running through it.  The Amstel River is the water source.  We took an hour cruise, enjoyed Amsterdam's Harbor, and saw many interesting houses.                          

AMSTEL RIVER CANAL CRUISE

RICH MAN-MANY WINDOW PANES

   People in Holland pay taxes based on how many windows are in the front of the house. 

   If people wanted to show that they were rich, they put in many small window panes, and that was one sign of their wealth.  The water in Amsterdam flows quite swiftly, so they did not have the problem of algae that Delft has.  

THE RIJKSMUSEUM ENTRANCE

     The Rijksmuseum is wunderbar!  I especially loved the Dutch Master Painters, like Rembrandt, Vermeer, Franz Hals and Jan Steen.  The 1600's was the Golden Age in art, and these artists flourished.  Their works are shown in the Gallery of Honor, and I enjoyed them most of all.  The Rijksmuseum is huge (four story's high.)  It is a beautiful building, and very worth visiting.  It is visitor friendly.
   


      One thing I must mention about Amsterdam and Delft.  The people park their cars right on the edge of the canal.

CARS ON BRINK OF CANAL

  With a mistep you could end up in the canal.  Bill came pretty close when he tried to get out and in the drivers side of our car.  We heard the story of a police car chasing a criiminal, and he ended up with his car in the canal.  We walked ourselves to exhaustion in Amsterdam, but it was a great day.







PARIS, FRANCE

     A five hour drive from The Hague  took us to Paris,France.   We checked into the patron housing at the Paris Temple, which is really located in Le Chesnay, France, a suburb of Paris.

BACK OF TEMPLE WITH GARDENS

 The temple complex is large.  It includes the temple, an underground garage, temple missionary housing, patron housing, a visitors center, very large kitchen cafeteria area, and sunken gardens.  The Angel Moroni is not on top of the temple because of zoning restrictions.  I missed not seeing Moroni there.  The temple has very small grounds in the front, they are all in the back.  The front door is really located quite close to a road.  The patron housing has  rooms for women and rooms for men.  I had five women roommates the first night, and Bill had two roommates.  His roommates names were Peter and John.  They were disappointed that Bill's name wasn't James.  Our second night, Bill's roommates left the temple, so I was able to move into his room.  Interestingly enough, they don't charge anything to stay in their patron housing.  In Freiberg they charge $9.00 a night!  We did two endowment sessions in the temple.  It is VERY beautiful inside and out.

     The Eiffel Tower immediately drew our attention because it is so large and towers above  everything else.

EIFFEL TOWER

 We walked to it, and all around it.  Lots of people were waiting to ride an elevator up part way to the top.  They won't allow anyone up to the top these days.  Security police with guns were noticed around the area.  When Bill was here 56 years ago, after his mission, he climbed the stairs clear to the top of the Tower.


     We walked all over Paris.  Strolling along the Seine, we made our way to the L'arc de triomphe.  I have wanted to see this every since I saw pictures of Dwight Eisenhower riding in his jeep through the Arch after freeing Paris from the Germans at the close of World War Two.

WE WALKED AT THE TOP
OF THE ARC DE TRIOMPHE

 This site, too, had security police around.  We rode the elevator to the top and had a birds eye view of Paris.  We spent about thirty minutes up top, bought a few souvenirs in the gift shop, and went back down.

      Surprisingly to us, as we walked to the Arc de Triomphe, we passed a huge memorial called the "Flame of Liberty."  All around the base of this monument were  pictures of Princess Diana.  The underground street right below us was the tunnel where she died in a car accident in August 1997.  It has been twenty years since this happened.

PRINCESS DIANA MEMORIAL

 
   Cruising the River Seine was wonderful for us, because we were so exhausted from walking all over Paris, that to cruise past Notre Dame Cathedral, and the Louve was a real treat.  We would never have had the energy to walk that far.  We cruised up and down the Seine for an hour.  Our guide told us that the Louve has ten miles worth of hallways if you visit the whole place.

 I guess I'll have to see the Mona Lisa another day.  If we had had another day to visit, I would have loved to go into Notre Dame and La basilique du Sacre-Coeur.  We could see the Sacre-Coeur sitting majestically upon a hill of Paris.
 I decided I was glad I did not live in Paris.  There are so many people there, and so many apartment buildings, that are so close together.  I did enjoy eating my baguette sandwich from Josephine's Backerei, and my strawberry whipped cream crepe from a street vendor.

EATING MY CREPE

SITES OF PARIS - BOTTOM RIGHT THE SACRE COEUR

   









Motorcyclists almost rule the road in Paris.  They buzz in and out and around and between lanes of traffic.  If you get in their way, they pound the side of your car with their gloved hand.  We got pounded several times.  They don't like to be hampered, or slowed down by commuter traffic.

HEIDELBERG, GERMANY

   Looking forward to a reunion with our son, Todd, we drove the 5 1/2 hours toward Heidelberg, Germany.  Todd flew into Frankfurt from Syracuse, New York, where he teaches, and met us in Heidelberg.  Heidelberg is very picturesque.

VIEW FROM THE CASTLE

 I have wanted to see it for many years after seeing the movie musical, "The Student Prince."  As I grew up, the songs from this movie were played and sung in our home by many members of my family.  One of the songs is "When It's Summertime In
Heidelberg."

     Heidelberg is a university town, it also has a schloss, or castle.  Surrounded by the Neckar River, this town is a picture postcard city.  We walked around the University, and took a cable railroad car up to the top of the mountain to the Schloss.

THE SCHLOSS HEIDELBERG

  This castle was used by Palatinate princes, stampeding Swedes, and Protestant reformers.  It has seen raging fires, and lightning bolts, but still is Heidelberg's heart stealer.

 

  We attended Sunday Sacrament Meeting in Heidelberg.  They have a beautiful Stake Center and two wards.  Six missionaries greeted us, and helped me enjoy the meeting by interpreting what the German speakers said.  The missionaries said that they have good success finding people to teach in Heidelberg.  The students there seem to be willing to listen.

WITH TODD IN THE CASTLE

LANDSTUHL/RAMSTEIN, GERMANY
     We traved 1 1/2 hours from Heidelberg to Landstuhl/Ramstein, Germany.  Todd was scheduled to teach classes for two days at the United States Air Base at Ramstein.  Fifty thousand Americans are stationed at Ramstein.

THE PROFESSOR PREPARING FOR CLASS

Todd is a professor at Syracuse University, and teaches classes at the base about how to start a business when you get out of the military, or how to get a job when you get out of the military.   He has been to Germany and other countries with this teaching assignment.
   
       We checked into our hotel, called 'The Schloss Hotel."  It was situated half way up a mountain, and close to the Schloss of Landstuhl.  The setting was beautiful.  We stayed here for three nights, and enjoyed walking to the Schloss, and exploring the area around Landstuhl and Ramstein.

OUR HOTEL IN LANDSTUHL

While Todd was teaching, we drove to the city of TRIER.  Trier is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is home to Germany's finest Roman monuments.   Trier was the northern capital of the Holy Roman Empire.   We were interested in seeing the Porta Nigra, a 2nd century city gate that has been blackened by time. Trier was founded in the 1st century BC.  It is Germany's oldest city.  Also of interest were an amphitheater and the thermal baths.

SITES OF TRIER - NOTE ROMAN RUINS

    We arrived in Trier full of hopes for a great day, and found to our sorrow, that all the museums were closed on Mondays.  We took a site seeing ride around town, but really missed seeing the most meaningful parts of Trier.  One interesting item on our guided tour was seeing the house where Karl Marx lived.  You will remember, Karl Marx wrote the book, "Mein Kampf."  


     Full of fond memories of beautiful temples, and historical sites, on September 20th we drove home to Freiberg and settled back into our super one room apartment ready to rest,  recuperate and get back to temple work on September 25th.  It was a  WUNDERBAR vacation!