I’ve decided it’s time to stop clinging to my remaining photos from that lovely high-summer visit to Paleis Het Loo, now that we’re more than six months later and emerging from the year’s shortest day here in the north. Above: Amsterdam’s Royal Palace from the same morning as the last couple posts. This building is used as the capital’s royal reception hall for guests some of the time, and as a museum the rest of the time. (In NL, the seat of both government and state, i.e. where the PM, King and parliament all ply their respective roles is The Hague…but everyone agrees Amsterdam is the capital nonetheless.) Apparently this building began life as a Town Hall in 1655, and was made over into a residence for royals in the 19th century. Now that my bike ride to work takes me past it both coming and going, I do expect and hope to get in for a visit. Below: all those remaining mid-summer photos left from that lovely afternoon which led to the first post in this series.
My recent outing to the museum at Paleis Het Loo, spurred by that Guardian article my friend Steve linked me to, has caused me to decide I should start a new series on royal – related locations. After all, royals since time began have generally had privileges, as well as residences, gardens and even vehicles (e.g. below from an exhibit in the former royal stables) that most humans at any given time or place couldn’t dream of. Into this new category might have gone one or two of the post from our visit last year to Vienna — in a nation now no longer a monarchy, but still earning tourist income from visitors come to see those residences. Or perhaps some posts from those royal residences of Rajasthan which I visited more than 13 years ago, that both inspired me with their beauty and troubled me as indications of a hugely unjust socio-political system. Thus my name for this new series: I’m wanting to admire the beauty while I question the socio-political system, along with all socio-political systems (e.g. late-modern capitalism and its manifestations in the land of my birth) which allow power and wealth to concentrate, often in dynastic and family lines one way or another. Ugh, wealth, power and its perquisites. And yes, those gardens you see through the gilded-fruit-tree window decoration below are gardens whose canals you’ve already seen a few times :-). Gilded fruit trees: lovely but rather quintessentially “ah, royal,” don’t you agree?
Last possible use of the lovely palace gardens at Paleis Het Loo as my excuse for not biking out of town to take some photos of a waterway that more fully meets the criteria for a Country Canal…because there are no more waterway shots from that lovely afternoon, which by the way was the Sunday (!) on which I returned home, opened my email, and learned that the owners of my last apartment were making me move. (I’m told that new laws give more protection to renters, so many owners are turfing folks out now while they still can.) I still haven’t shown you the actual gardens or palace building, so as apology and taste of things to come, this shot below in which a visible wee waterway that also resembles a canal manages to qualify it for Paul’s own self-imposed definitions. 🙂
I really must get out to the real countryside and take more canal photos. I also need to show you more of Paleis Het Loo (thanks to Steve, without whom I wouldn’t have known we should stop by that palace when we were in the neighborhood in late June) than just more of these shots from their lovely palace gardens…
I’ve decided it’s time to stop clinging to my remaining photos from that lovely high-summer visit to Paleis Het Loo, now that we’re more than six months later and emerging from the year’s shortest day here in the north. Above: Amsterdam’s Royal Palace from the same morning as the last couple posts. This building is used as the capital’s royal reception hall for guests some of the time, and as a museum the rest of the time. (In NL, the seat of both government and state, i.e. where the PM, King and parliament all ply their respective roles is The Hague…but everyone agrees Amsterdam is the capital nonetheless.) Apparently this building began life as a Town Hall in 1655, and was made over into a residence for royals in the 19th century. Now that my bike ride to work takes me past it both coming and going, I do expect and hope to get in for a visit. Below: all those remaining mid-summer photos left from that lovely afternoon which led to the first post in this series.
(so much world, so little time....) 