This is "Onbekommerd"!

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Franeker and Easterlittens

After a nice evening with our friends (and fellow boaters) Hans and Jet, we left the mooring in front of their house at 8am as we had an appointment at Valk Yachts, the 'birthplace' of Onbekommerd in the town of Franeker. We tied up at the boatyard at 11:30.





After we had a few things done (including removal of the heater, which - after the repair in Utrecht - is playing up again) and made arrangements for some TLC to Onbekommerd next winter, we tied up along the quayside of Franeker itself.
This morning we set out to explore this small but extremely interesting Frisian town. A University was founded here in 1585, only a year after the first University in the Netherlands in Leiden. It is no longer here, but was in existence for over 250 years.
Also, Franeker houses the oldest still working planetarium constructed by a mainly self taught woolcomber, mathematician and astronomer called Eise Eisinga. He built the planetarium in the space of 7 years in the ceiling of his living room. So even today you can see the actual positions of the planets, the moon and the sun there. It is fascinating! Here are some Franeker pictures:





Planetarium (unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures inside, but it is worthwhile to Google it!)





Korendragershuisje.




Onbekommerd in Franeker


This morning we set out on a new adventure: through the 'Bolswarder Trekvaart' to another Frisian town, Bolsward. Why is this an adventure? Well the canal, which is supposed to be 1.65m deep, turns out to be 1.2 m (Onbekommerd needs 1m). So not a lot of water under the keel. On top of that, the bridges are 2.50m. That is exactly what we need. We are now tied up along the canal in a very rural setting:





This is near Easterlittens, about a third of the way to Bolsward.

The lowest bridge will be early tomorrow, we have dropped the GPS antenna to get minimum headroom requirement. So we'll see tomorrow 'if it fits'. If not, we'll have to turn around and retrace our steps to the bigger canals. Not really a problem.
Watch this space......

Location:Weakens,Iens,The Netherlands

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