These tourists were seeing Dordrecht by open boat along the waterways through the city.

The Grote Kerk  “Great Church” (visible at the end of the road) has a climbable “leaning” tower, so who could resist.  See the clock’s face on the tower?  That’s where we climbed, all 72 meters; 2,376 ft.   I loved the stained glass windows in the church; one set told Dordrecht history, but the other three; my absolute favorites, told the stories of the city Guilds with a few hidden surprises.

“Dordrecht is the oldest city of Holland, as the western part of the Netherlands is called.  The city owes its prosperity to its location in the Rhine and Meuse delta and to the staple right, an old form of levying.  For centuries the tower has been under construction.  Nowadays such a long building period is inconceivable, but 600 years ago it was common practice due to limited resources and techniques.

Construction began in the early 14^th century.  Some hundred years later, around 1450, work had proceded as high as the gallery, but then fate struck.  Both church and tower were seriously damaged during an enourmous fire that raged through half the city – a phenomenon that wan not unusual either in those days- in 1457.  Having to rebuild the tower, however, offered an opportunity to change the design.  The tower was to get an octangular stone crowning and to attain a height of no less than 108 meters.  (3.3 times 108 = 3,564 ft.)  But as the tower started to subside, the idea was dropped.  The free standing entrance (locked when we got there) is a reminder of the 16^th century plan to tear down the tower in order to enlarge the church building.  But this part of the plan was abandoned as well.  Finally, in 1626 construction came to an end with the installation of four colossal clockfaces that still outline the silhouette of “the Dordtse dom, the city’s cathedral.” 

At present the tower is 2.25 meters (7.4.5 ft) off plumb and braces itself with a twelve million kilo weight against the northwest, symbolizing the city’s relationship with wind and water..

Grote Kerk Tower brochure

Stained Glass story of Dordrecht history….

-The Hoekse en Kabeljauwse twisten window illustrates the struggle for power between two groups of noblemen and towns in the 14^th and 15^th centuries

-The Great Flood of 1421 called the St Elizabeth Flood

-Great Fire of 1457 that destroyed large parts of the town of Dordrecht and the church

The Dordrecht Guild Windows installed in 2007

Througout the church the many chapels were owned by different Guilds illustrated with images meaningful to that specific Guild.  The images in these  windows, installed in 2007,  include the tools or products of all of the Guilds. 

The artist who created the windows  Teun Hocks

http://beautifuldecay.com/2012/03/13/teun-hocks/  tells about this fascinating artist.

These wonderful windows represent the guilds

The men who paid for the windows.

These church visitors were lit by the sun.  The lovely church “guide” was lit from within!  She explained all about the Guild windows to us which was a good thing as the church brochures I bought had no information at all other than when they were installed.  It was Ms. N van Bezooijen who pointed out the window’s artist and the image of the men who had paid for the window.  And the oval shapes with the three triangle cut-out parts that are cookies.

While I was chatting away with Ms van Bezooijen, Mary was sussing out the tower climb.  Turns out that the tower closed at 4:15 and it was then 4 pm.  So it was a race to the top up the 275 steps.  

Tiny people must have built this tower!

Ta da!  We made it with time to spare!

We left our brochure jammed in the stairwell door just to make sure we could get off the balcony and back into the stairwell neither one of us having a phone.  And doors don’t seem to work exactly as Mary and I expect, so just to be on the safe side….  But when we were just about ready to head back down two other people came onto the balcony so we figured we really weren’t so late after all.

You can see the columns of the Town Hall and beyond that the tower of the Almshouses.  What got me was that we were looking across at the rooster weathervane which meant we were up high.

We were also just about face to face with the clock.  Inside you walked past the clock workings.

     “At the level of the tower’s gallery is the clock that was made in 1624 by Jan Janszoon who lived in Dordrecht.  The clock has two striking mechanisms and a spring mechanism that Simon Douw converted in 1663 – shortly after Christiaan Huygens invented the pendulum clock- equipped with a 6.25 meters long pendulum.  The clock functioned well into the 1930s.  During the restoration works of 1966 it was restored to its natural state, that is to say with a foliot instead of a pendulum.  At the same time big hands were added to the four clockfaces with their  4.25 meters in diameter ring of Roman numerals.  Until then the clocks only had minute hands, indicating only the hour.  At present it is one of the few remaining clocks in the Netherlands that still operates on a foliot.  The {3} weights that keep the spring mechanism going, and those that make the clock strike every half and full hour weigh 160, 220, and 300 kilos respectively.  (1 kilo = 2.2 pounds)  They are suspended from ropes and are wound up electronically.” Grote Tower brochure

The Tower Hall is where you begin and end your climb.   The actual tower stairwell is circular, stone, narrow, and dark.  I came out fairly dizzy! 

It did finally occur to us we needed to check the ferry schedule back to Papendrecht as they only run every 50 minutes or so.  So then it was a race to the ferry, but we made it with a minute or two to spare.

The bridge across would have been a very long hike so the ferry really was our only option.  And as we were leaving early the following morning we still needed a trip to the grocery store.  Some nights we stop in yacht clubs with full services and shops nearby.  Other nights we just have to tie up where we can find a space so need to be prepared for at least 2 or three days of meals on the boat.

Papendrecht Yacht Club.  Power, water, wifi, a nearby shopping area, ATM and probably most important, a really really helpful harbor master and friendly boaters to lend an extension cord for our power cable.  We now have one of our own but didn’t when we first arrived.  We can last a night without power and could run our generator to recharge batteries if we have to, but it’s nice to just plug in.  You pay for it but that’s just fine.

Apartments surrounded the