Klompen in Pella

Step into your most comfortable shoes and let’s go walking in Pella.  Unless you’d prefer to clomp around in an authentic pair of Dutch klompen---wooden shoes!  This cheerful pair was standing guard at the doorway of the Vermeer Mill.  They must have been made for a giant---my granddaughter had fun sitting in one of them!

Let’s amble on and gaze at colorful autumn flower scenes….

….and, stroll beneath the Klokkenspel, into the courtyard to peruse these Old World scenes painted in Dutch-style on tiles:

 

Here’s all six of the panels.  Click to enlarge them.

 

Clomping around town works up an appetite, so let’s visit the Jaarsma Bakery (pronounced “Yarsma”)for some delicous Dutch pastries.  Puff pillows are my favorite.  (Unfortunately, I devoured mine before realizing I should have taken a photo of it first.)  The bakery also displays traditional Dutch items, including Delft pottery:

We’ll need to stop at Smokey Row, too, for a coffee-to-go and to examine the intriguing old safe tucked away in the back of the establishment:

We’ll march on down Franklin Street past the Wyatt Earp House.  A Google search of his name led me to a travelogue blogpost entitled, “What is Wyatt Earp Doing in a Klokkenspel?”  Read it if you have time---it is an enjoyable and informative piece about the Pella area.   

Are you tuckered out yet?  We could sit and rest a spell with these quietly contented canines on Main Street:

 

Apparently, they’ve been faithfully waiting in the same spot for 106 years!

Hope you’re not too tired of seeing flowers for here is one of my favorite pictures from the pleasant day spent in Pella.  I just like the way this photo turned out, with the clearly-focused flowers contrasted against the slightly out-of-focus wrought iron railings.  I didn’t edit the photo---it just turned out this way.  That’s what a 55-200mm lens will sometimes do, I guess.

My Pella photo file still holds many more scenes which are clambering to be posted on the blog.  “Choose me!  Choose me!”, they all seem to say.  Mostly they are pictures of windows.  Pella is full of charming old windows lined with equally charming lace curtains!  Could it be because Pella is home to Heritage Lace and Pella Windows!?  I’ll save those photos to use on the blog this winter when its too cold to go outdoors with the camera.  Pella is also home to Vermeer Manufacturing---maker of agricultural and industrial machinery---and hopefully someday I will take the time to stop and tour its museum and snap a photo of the gleaming headquarters building on the east edge of town.   Thanks for clompin’ around Pella with me!