Saturday, September 27, 2014

Town of Thorn

Although we did discuss if it was actually a town or a village but agreed at the end that it was a town. It's a beautiful area with a wonderful church. The "village" area buildings are all in white. In 1794 the French claimed the area and based the taxes on the size of the windows. To avoid paying taxes the people bricked up many of the windows and white washed the homes to hide what they had done. The town dates back to approximately 995! The Abbey Church is the last surviving building after everything was destroyed between 1794 and 1814. The oldest surviving part of the Abbey Church dates back to the 2nd quarter of the 12 century! The tower on the west building was build around 1863 to 1872. There is even a crypt and a naturally preserved mummy!

Pictures from inside the church...



In the village you can stop at the VVV (the Netherlands version of information) and pick up a walking map for just under 2 euro. It gives you a walking tour with history of points of interest through out the historical area. My favorite? The Mint house. According to the map money was coined by the princess abbess Margaretha Van Brederode (1531-1577) and Anna van der Marck (1604 - 1631) the former being a notorious counterfeiter! The parliament in Augsburg closed down the mint in 1582 but Anna was able to regain the rights temporarily. One of the buildings housed a brandy distiller at the beginning of the 19th century and according to the notes "two servants had a sideline in smuggling door" after which the owner halved the door in size to prevent it from happening again. Of course there are lots of other little stories to go with it and it was a beautiful day to visit!
Here is a picture of the girls walking around the town with Omi.
And of course after walking around the village we had to stop and get some coffee and meat pie!

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