Next stop was the Belfry Tower. The streets all look very similar in the downtown area. Lovely old homes and lots of chocolate shops so we followed the GPS on our phone till we got there.
The base of the building is seen here on the left with the grey stone archway.
There are of course shops at the base of the tower.
This one hosted a bunch of random knitted animals vs monsters.
The tower itself is the second tallest brickwork tower in Europe.
Unlike many other towers it is not attached to a church but rather served as a center piece to the town. It was started in the 12th century and took years to build.
The tower used to host a treasury which held 2 chests one of which is seen here. The treasure however was not one of money but rather historical documents and governmental contracts. Unique to this time was that the government empowered many of the poor working people by bestowing them with rights and land. Due to a fire at one point the documents were then placed in the iron chests behind iron doors to protect them. There were 10-12 keys that worked the padlock to the gates and 9 people with keys had to be present to open the chest. As you can imagine the chests were not accessed very often.
I usually find the ceiling as interesting as the walls.
Next floor
Climbing upwards
There were once 12 (I think) large bells the last of which cracked in the 1700s so they moved this one from the Church of our Lady to the Belfry. It weighs over 6 tons!
This is the coolest part (in my oppinion). The room below the bells contains this large gear apparatus with movable keys. As it turns it signals to the bells which to play. There are 112 keys in total so it is like a piano-bell tower. Because of the number of tourists there it plays a little song every 15 minutes and on the hour a 5 minute melody.
We happen to arrive at 5 o'clock just in time for the bells to ring:
The first bell really scared Charlotte as she screamed, though she is a little dramatic these days.
But man alive check out that view!
Nothing beats a good sunset.
Some reference points to places in Europe (mostly within Belgium).
It was quite windy and cold which added to the fun.
The climb down took a while but Hazel was a good sport about it. A tight/narrow spiral staircase is the only way up and down and there is only one so it gets tricky passing people going the opposite direction.
Comments