Thursday afternoon tourists

This afternoon we took advantage of some decent weather and made some tourist wanderings.  First we visited the Convent that had housed William of Orange (William the Silent) until he was shot.  Here is a statue of Sister Gertrude.  We then entered the Olde Kerk (Old Church), which only has occasional church services now, but a very lovely building,

An intresting portable organ

 Buried in this church is Anthony van Leeuwenhoek - the inventor of the microscope.  Also Johannes Vermeer is purpored to be buried here.  There is a story that says that only the wealthy could be buried inside the church - the poor were relegated to the fields outside.  So when a wealthy person died, they were put into the floor of the church and covered with a large flat piece of stone - and thereby came the expression "the stinking rich".

 We returned to the basement of the convent for lunch - watch out for those incredible low ceilings

Then it was over to the New Church



This is the burial place for William of Orange - the Father of the Netherlands.  All the members of the Dutch royal families are buried in an underground crypt.