Travelogue - Muiden - southeast of Amsterdam (7th Sept 2009)

So it's 7th Sept 2009 and it's the first day of our roadtrip across several locations in Europe. After a nice home-cooked breakfast at home that consisted of bread, ham and cheese, Chin Aun and I piled into the car with a truckload of luggage and food and headed down to Muiden, a little town on the southeast of Amsterdam to see the great Muiderslot Castle.

Road Trip
view from car with modern windmills on the right

After driving for a little more than an hour of driving and on the way -wondering at the evolution of modern windmills, checking out black and white cows grazing on green pastures and and admiring the rearing of black stallions in farms all along the highway, we finally found Muiderslot (which was around 110km away from our location in Leeuwarden).

Entrance to Castle Area

Front View of Castle

Castle Garden

View of Castle from Garden

Chin Aun standing outside the sheltered arch that leads to the garden

Walking along the pathway

After we were done admiring the garden, we went into the castle for a look-see (after all, we paid 8.50euros per person to enter!) The first place we checked out was the dungeon and torture chamber :D and there was a sign that showed all the different types of punishments that was carried out back in the 1200's.

And there was one that particularly caught my eye...

Tongue Piercing for Swearing

Yup! You read right... to think that back then, swearing was a crime severe enough to be punishable by piercing one's tongue. Who would've thought that by now, swearing is so common and tongue piercing is actually considered cool by a certain crowd...

According to the rest of the sign (which I didn't post up here), Murder was a serious crime that was punishable by Decapitation. Do you think by the year 3000, some genres would consider it cool to decapitate themselves?

Chin Aun posing with the hand and foot cuffs - we didn't manage to find out this punishment was belted out for which crime though!

Walking inside to explore the interior of the castle, we were taken to this room that gave a detailed description of how correspondence was like in the 1800's together with a functioning seal stamp (a seal to mark the letter intact and unread)

Me experimenting with the letter seal

There was also a room where we can see how the people were dressed back then. The clothes were propped up on a metal mannequin outline so that we can take photos with it!

And as you can see from the photo above, clearly the dames were waaaaaaay taller than since I am already standing on tiptoes and you can't even see my neck!

There were a lot more rooms in there - a room that showed the study of Floris V and a room that had showed the state of the castle throughout the years. There was this room where the castle flags/banners of Holland and Zeeland displayed.

Posing with the flags!

There was even a room with a built-in arcade game that simulates soldiers throwing cannonballs at enemies that are attacking the castle! The key to winning is to avoid cannonballing the peasants (which I did on purpose just for the sake of doing it!)

Travelled so far to be hooked on a game

It was a maze in there! There were doors that led to a bridge from inside that overlooks the front of the castle.

Chin Aun and I taking turns to take photo on the Bridge

The view overlooking the Castle Garden

We also climbed the tower inside the castle (which made me shudder and think of Martini Tower all over again because my feet was still aching!)

Taking photos even when making our way up and down the tower

The view from inside the Castle Tower

After we've finally walked everywhere (I think!), we just took a stroll along the side and back of the castle. There was a guided tour but it was conducted in Dutch so we didn't think to join since we won't understand it anyways.

Muiderslot Castle from the Back

Muiderslot Castle from the Front

And so, the road trip to Amsterdam continues... :D Another 20-30km!! (which I will blog about in a separate post)

Oh, I just realized that I actually took some photos of the Muider Town but since I have finally completed this post, I really am too lazy to upload the photos and go through the hassle of minding the alignment again... hehehe...