HEAVENLY AND EARTHLY DELIGHTS

When we visited the Vermeer exhibition in Amsterdam a few weeks ago, we stayed in Utrecht, a lovely university town a 30-minute train ride away.  While there for the long Easter weekend, we spent time wandering the town and then spent the Sunday holiday at Keukenhof, Holland’s largest flower garden. 

Utrecht is one of our favorite Dutch towns, and I posted about it here in 2019: Utrecht post.  We never tire of the place and always find something new.  Our hotel (below) was across the street from the Saturday flower market.

We bought some tulips, and the concierge gave us a champagne bucket to keep them fresh.

They made it home!

Just around the corner from our hotel was an Art Nouveau wine bar called Ruby Rose, where we had dinner.

Utrecht is full of canals and Golden Age architecture, buzzing with a university (below) vibe and bees visiting the apple blossoms.

 

We caught this crew competition on one of the main canals that run through the downtown.

Buff doesn't even begin to describe it!

Although we've visited Utrecht several times, we had never seen the cathedral.  It had been years since I last stepped inside a gothic church, and I had forgotten the bodily sensation that comes from being in such a soaring space.  St. Martin’s Cathedral, known locally as the Dom, is only half-standing, its nave having been destroyed in a freak windstorm—probably a tornado—in 1674.  Per Wiki:

The cathedral's nave was never completely finished, and on the night of August 1, 1674, a tornado destroyed this part of the cathedral, but the tower was undamaged.

The remaining section of the church and the tower were never reconnected,…

 Another Wiki  article notes:

What remains of St. Martin's today are the choir, the transept and the Dom Tower. The central nave of the cathedral which collapsed in the storm of 1674 is now a square with large trees, the Domplein.  Stones in various colours indicate in the pavement the original outlines of the church.

In 2004, 750 years after construction began, the collapsed parts were temporarily rebuilt in scaffolding material. The scaffolding was also blown down in a storm, like the original nave.

Here are an image and a scale model of the cathedral before the storm.

I don’t know how tall the transept is, but it made me feel totally insignificant.  Imagine how a medieval worshiper, most likely much shorter than I, would have felt in this towering space. 

 

Built between 1231 and 1281 as an imposing representation of the power of the Holy Roman Empire, the Dom fell victim to the iconoclasm of the Reformation and many of its exterior and interior “idols” were destroyed. Medieval tomb markers remain, along with some contemporary art.  

Despite (or possibly because of) its Protestant restraint, the Dom is magnificent and dominates the town. 

  

The Dom has a typical medieval cloister with parterres.

 

It provided a starkly contrasting backdrop to an unusual photo shoot.

Easter dawned cloudy but the skies soon cleared; in any event, we were headed to a sunny and colorful afternoon at Keukenhof.  From Wiki:

Keukenhof (English: "Kitchen garden”), also known as the Garden of Europe, is one of the world's largest flower gardens, situated in the municipality of Lisse, in the Netherlands. According to the official website, Keukenhof Park covers an area of 32 hectares (79 acres) and approximately 7 million flower bulbs are planted in the gardens annually. Keukenhof is widely known for its tulips, and it also features numerous other flowers, including hyacinths, daffodils, lilies, roses, carnations and irises.

Keukenhof is located in the province of South Holland, south of Haarlem and southwest of Amsterdam in the area called the "Dune and Bulb Region" . … Though its grounds are open year-round for private affairs and festivals, Keukenhof is only open to the general public for a world-renowned 8 week tulip display from mid-March to mid-May, with peak viewing arriving near mid-April, depending on growing season weather, which varies annually. In 2019, 1.5 million people visited Keukenhof, equivalent to 26,000 visitors per day. By comparison, the Rijksmuseum receives an average of 8,000 visitors per day, ...

And Easter Sunday proved to be no exception to the rule.  We were probably two weeks too early for peak tulip, and there seemed to be more visitors than open flowers that day.  Not the least bit disappointed, we spent a few hours in the park, where we saw stunning drifts of hyacinths, tulips, and daffodils, as well as manicured lawns, cherry trees and magnolias in bloom, and pollarded ornamental trees. 

And this adorable Flower Fairy.

From one manifestation of heaven on Earth, a cathedral of stone, to another, a garden of earthly delights, it was a perfect Easter weekend.  If only the tulips had arisen too!

Keep it real!

Marilyn

P.S.  If you go to Utrecht, here is a guide to the sights: Utrecht Guide.