Franeker

Before I visited Leeuwarden I visited the town of Franeker. This town was recently was featured on boingboing for the Planetarium (which we visited). The planetarium was built by an amateur scientist Eise Eisinga who learned math and astronomy from his father.

At the age of 16 he had published a book on math and at 17 a book about astronomy. At the time, there was an interesting conjunction of planets and an anonymous writer (later identified as the village priest) published a work claiming the gravity would suck the earth into the sun and all would be destroyed. The villagers panicked and didn't go to work and Eisinga decided to build a planetarium to demonstrate the clockwork regularity of the universe and that the planets were so far apart they would not collide.

Above the living room was the wonderful mechanism for running the planets. It would also show sun rise and sun set times and the current astrological sign.



The inside of the room was beautiful and still the original paint. However, I was not allowed to take photos, even without a flash. I was very disappointed by this. Given that it was constructed to spread knowledge to the masses, now you need to buy the postcard. I took a photo of the postcard. You can see the ceiling with the orbits of the planets marked out and the beautiful colours.

On the way back I took some photos of two aqueducts. To ensure traffic isn't impeded they have the canal go over the road. This first picture shows you how deep the water is as it crosses the highway.

Here is the second canal we crossed under.


And here you can just see the sailboat going through the canal as we cross under it.