Weert, Limburg, the Netherlands

Through Nancy and Doug Young, two friends from our SundaySchool class, we have met Erwin de Leeuw and his family.  Erwin was an exchange student who stayed with Nancy and Doug while in the US.  He has become their Dutch son over the years and he is now married to Tonja and has two children Jennifer and Melvin.  They live in Weert, in the proivnce of Limburg (pronounced Veert) about two hours out of Amsterdam by train.  Erwin told us about an event that occurs in his area every year and is not a well known attraction that your basic tourist would see.  He thought we might enjoy it, so we made arrangements to go last Sunday.  We got up early and caught the 8:07 AM train.  

Erwin and Melvin met us at the station and we walked through the little town of Weert. 

It was a beautiful morning and not many people around on Sunday.  

Old City Hall, now a museum

Former gate and moat to a castle - now a park

Erwin grew up in Weert so was a wealth of information on the town and area of Limburg.

After touring through town, we drove to Erwin's home and met the rest of the family. Tonja and Jennifer.  The children were quite shy at first and neither speak English yet, but that didn't seem to bother them.  Once they got used to us, language didn't matter.  After a little lunch, we set off to the village of  Grevenbicht to watch the Old Militia parade.  The Militia Units represent the Militia that defended the small villages of the Netherlands in long ago times.  The parade and event is held in the home town or village of the previous year's winners.  This parade and tournament goes back hundreds of years and most dress in folkloric costumes of the past.  For each of the 148 units participating there is a banner carrier displaying the unit and village, a band for music, generally Axmen (demonstrating those who cut down forests for defense), bread women (women who cooked for the militia) the King and Queen and sometimes an Emperor (if the village has won for three consecutive years), and lastly the Militia themselves with weapons of old, including guns, pikes, cannon, etc.  Each unit is judged during the parade on authenticity (right down to fresh baked bread for the bread women) to costumes, parade formation, marching and keeping their distance (sounds like the Marine Corps to me).  It is quite the colorful event and obviously takes hours and hours.  We found our spots to watch (Melvin decided it was nap time)

and stayed for at least half of the units to pass by.  Here are some highlights:

Horsemen (the all black ones are Freisian's which are bred in Friesland the Netherlands).  They are elegant, agile and large.  It is believed they are the ancestors of Middle Ages horses that were valued as war horses because of their size.  They could easily carry knights in armor.

Banner carrier and Axmen

Bands

Kings Queens and Emperors (The Emperor leads and the King follows)

The silver medals wworn by the Emperor and or King represent awards the units have won

Bread ladies

and last but not least militiamen

He was just shooting this off when I took the picture

As it was going to be hours for the parade to finish, we moved on to observe where the shooting events would take place.  These are the targets

They shoot up from the ground aiming for the little beads on these targets

There we met Tanja's father, who is a gun master  (prepares guns for the shooters).  

He was only observing this year but has been the gun master for the Weert Militia Unit in previous years.

Erwin wanted to show us the White Village so we left to take in some more of the area.  In olden days, the White Village was taxed based on the number of windows in the house, so people bricked up the windows and just painted over them.  This shows a bricked up window 

Lovely little village and where Erwin and Tanja were married

The church Erwin and Tanja were married in

Jennifer and Melvinjust having fun

We went to the pancake house for dinner.  

Wow what pancakes.  They are like a big unfolded crepe with anything you want on it.  Mine was apple and raisin.  Erwin had basically a pizza pancake and Terry's was ham, cheese and I can't remember what else.  The kids had kid size strawberry. Yummy!

 

Have you ever seen such a pancake.

What a great day and we met some new wonderful people.  What could be better.  We drove back to town and Erwin dropped us at the train station.  We got home about 10:00 PM. 

Thanks Nancy and Doug for introducing us to your Dutch son and his family.