The day we climbed a 320ft Tower

Today was another transit day, as we began our flyby of the various seas and lakes which surround the Netherlands most recent provincial addition, Flevoland.  We wound our way through cities with medieval histories all the way up the Zuiderzeeroute. Incidentally, when I say that Flevoland is the Netherlands newest province, I'm not joking and I'm not referring to land acquisition through war, conflict, or sudden annexation (cough....CRIMEA....cough!). The actual land mass of Flevoland has only existed since 1960, because before that, IT WAS COMPLETELY UNDER WATER! I'll say it again, the Dutch are master engineers! 

Today, we left the Dutch province or Utrecht and entered the province of Gelderland. We had two goals:
1. Make it to Nuunspeet in one piece (we were tired)

2. Gaze upon the amazing beauty of the medieval city of Amersfoort.

SPOILER ALERT: We achieved both of those goals...and then some! TLDR: PRETTY PICTURES BELOW!

Amersfoort was truly one of the coolest places I've ever been. The city still has partially intact walls from the 15th century, and there is a GIANT church tower, which you can actually climb to the top of. 

Amersfoort is named for its placement at the ford of the Eem River (formerly the Amer River), hence its name. I'm learning that the Dutch are nothing if not practical.  Amersfoort has a curious legend. A girl, who came to Amersfoort in 1444 to enter the St. Agnes Convent had brought a small wooden virgin Mary statue with her. The legend goes that she was ashamed of how cheap it was, so she threw it into the canal. That night some other woman had a dream about fishing the figurine out of the canal. She awoke the next morning and retrieved the statue from where it was tossed in. She took it home with her and lit a candle in front of it and walked away. Well, she kept coming back and noticed that the candle never burned down. It just kept burning and burning. I guess she found the energizer bunny of candles? Whatever, the point is that people found out about this and started to flock to the town as pilgrims. The figure was said to cause miracles and healing. Amersfoort got a TON of money from pilgrims coming into town. The head cleric of the church was "divinely instructed" to use that money to build a giant tower and then a church with all that delicious money. Maybe it would have been nice to use that money to feed the poor or clothe the naked like the Christian's Jesus taught in their beatitudes? Nope! Build a tower!

Well we're glad they did, because it's massively cool! at 99 meters ~320 feet high, the tower looms over the city. It houses not 1 BUT 2 carillons. In fact, Amersfoort is only one of two places in the entire world with an academy for Carillon players, and the final exams are done from the same "Our Lady of Amersfoort Tower." One of those carillons is smaller, but the other is MASSIVE, and the largest bell they have weighs 800 kg or ~1760 lbs. The carillons are built into the tower onto their own free-standing massive wooden structure, like a 3D boxy bell chamber. They cannot be attached to the tower, because of their massive weights and sizes. When they ring, they shake whatever they are attached to. If they were attached to the actual tower, they would eventually shake the thing apart until they finally fell (with the tower) onto the city. Fun fact: The expensive church once attached to that tower is gone. It turns out that, in typical Dutch fashion, the church became used for other important town functions. Once it was used as an ammunition depot. In fact, that was its FINAL use for the city. The story goes that one day some dumb-ass soldier noticed some rust on the outside of an old grenade (yes they had grenades back then) and he went to scrape the rust off of it. Knife meets metal...sparks fly, and the church goes BOOM and burns down. THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!

We know all of this cool stuff because we took a guided tour of the tower and climbed all 365 steps to the top of it with a guide, who talked about the history of the city. We stopped at each stage of construction in the tower, as our awesome Dutch tour guide talked about everything in great detail. He didn't speak very much English, but my German is still up to par. I was able to decipher and translate most of what he was saying to Jessi. There were of course big gaps as he spoke hurriedly and in subject-specific terms, but I was able to get the main point across. Because his English was not so great, he and I got along pretty well in Dutch, German, and English in that order. It was fun to watch as he quizzed the young Dutch on the tour with us about the cities on the skyline and shook his head with embarrassment as they got each wrong. I guess that happens everywhere, as I've seen that happen all the time back home!

We finished up our tour and walked around the town to see the old "wallhouses," comprised of materials that the original medieval city walls were. We also saw the city gates. The Koppelpoort, on the north side of the city was a sight to behold. This city gate straddles the river and has access to the city from the land as well. The people of the city could control access to the city by land and by water. Just to make an impression, they used prisoners to open and close the water gates. There is a "tit coop" on the front, which was a wooden box with open bottom through which they could poor scalding hot things onto people trying to invade the city. SUPER COOL!

We hopped back on our bikes and made for Nuunspeet, where we would sleep for the night. The long wide-open fields of South Holland and Utrecht slowly became wooded hollows and thick forests as we pedaled our way forward. Tired and sore, we made it to the NH Sparrenhorst Hotel in Rural Nunspeet. The hotel was a godsend, and we were happy for the rest and relaxation. We spent a lot of time in Amersfoort and wound up coming into Nunspeet a bit late. Jessi made us reservations for dinner at the restaurant and later announced to me that she requested a surprise meal for us. It was really awesome. Basically, we told the chef our food preferences/allergies, and the chef prepared a surprise meal on the spot for each of us, according to our preferences: Sea bass for Jessi and slow cooked veal for me. It was delicious! Full and tired, we ambled back up to our room to work on the blog and get some sleep. It was then that I found out that their wifi is AWFUL. In order to be able to to anything other than load their wifi security page, you have to buy their executive internet package. FORGET IT! This post is coming at you a day late. Apologies!

"Tomorrow" we're off to the fairy-tale beauty of Giethorn! Stay tuned!