Utrecht was on our agenda today. But, first because it was Tuesday, we needed to shop at the street market in Baarn. Linda loves this market. They have food, clothes, and vitamins. We drove over because we started late and saw it all. Linda bought some leggings to keep warm, if not here, then later in the Dolomites.
After the market it was back to the house and we caught the train to Utrecht. The town is dominated by the cathedral bell tower. It makes a good landmark to get your bearings. In the 700's, a Frankish king built a church on this site that was once a Roman fort. Then in the 1200's the cathedral construction was started. During the 1500's the builders ran out of steam and stopped. I think it was sometime during the 1700's that the church was hit by a tornado and the nave fell in, thus separating the tower from the sanctuary. And that's how it stands today.
The church is dedicated to St. Martin and built in standard Gothic style. During the Reformation, it was stripped of the Catholic ornaments and made very Protestant.
After some help from our friends at the tourist office, we found the music box museum. Linda and I found it last year and thought it was really cool. They have a large collection of music boxes and what I would call street organs.
Some of them are designed to be hauled around on the street and others are for dance halls that replace whole orchestras.
Our tour leader guided us through the history and development of music producing machines that run programs whether they are "hard-wired" or programmed by using punched cards, paper strips, or metal records.
These large and loud devices were very popular until the 1930's when everything crashed and that was the end of the story.
After the museum, it was time for a coffee and then off to a comic book store for Deb to find one in Dutch for a friend.
Then, back home on the train and a small dinner.
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