By Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com

Day 6 on Boat Bike Tours’ eight-day Islandhopping tour of northern Netherlands is a case when the hype doesn’t even begin to match the reality of the experience. Today’s ride will take us either 29 or 36 miles (depending on our choice of short or long routes) from Harlingen to Franeker, through the Frisian countryside and rural villages to Bolsward and into Makkum on the eastern bank of lake Ijsselmeer. Boat Bike Tours doesn’t just curate the cycling routes, they also curate experiences. In this case, our bike tour turns into an exploration of the solar system through an 18^th century lens.

We set out biking first to the historic center of Franeker to visit the Koninklijk Eise Eisinga Planetarium (Royal Eise Eisinga Planetarium) – the oldest continuously operating planetarium in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage site. I had never heard of Eise Eisinga or his planetarium, but am instantly amazed.

Eise Eisinga was a wool-comber and largely self-taught scientist and astronomer who spent seven years, from 1774 to 1781, building a remarkable planetarium in his house! – in his living room/bedroom/dining room to be precise. We see the cupboard where he would have slept with his wife under the mechanism, the pull-out trundle bed where his children would have slept, the dining table. Above, on the ceiling, we see where he constructed a solar system where the six known planets in exact scale follow their rotation around the sun with remarkable precision even by today’s standards, using today’s instruments. The fact that the mechanism is still in working order is evidence of the ingenuity and foresight of its maker, who left detailed instructions for its maintenance.

While waiting for the English-language presentation, we visit the fascinating exhibits that take up the rest of his home, starting with a delightful video interview between “Eise Eisinga” and an actual Dutch astronaut and another superb video about Eisinga’s life.

When I learn about Eise Eisinga’s biography, I am awed by his genius, bringing to my mind Leonardo DaVinci.

Eise Eisinga was born in 1744 in Dronrijp where he attended primary school. Like many children in those days who worked at home, he worked in his father’s wool combing establishment. In addition to his father’s profession, he inherited his father’s interest in astronomy and mathematics. Eise was so determined to learn that he would travel every week to Franeker, a major center of learning, to study Euclidean math with Willem Wijtses, a wool dyer. When he was 24, Eisinga married Pietje Jacobs and settled in Franeker in 1768, working as a wool comber.

On May 8, 1774,a local newspaper published a prediction from a preacher that the confluence of Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter and the moon would result in the mutual forces of these celestial bodies knocking the earth off its path and cause it to be burned up by the sun (“the end of time!”). That set off a panic and seems to have been an impetus for Eisinga to begin building his model of the solar system to show the extreme unlikelihood of planets colliding.

It took Eisinga seven years to construct his planetarium – a real triumph of craftsmanship to carve the wood (his father, a woodcarver, helped), create 6,000 precision nails for the cogs, and the exquisite painting. Eise would have finished sooner, but in a critical development, he had to adjust the placement of the pendulum that kept everything in motion, because his wife drew the line on allowing him to cut a hole in the floor (it was their bedroom, after all), so he had to recalculate everything and replace all 6,000 nails.

The power (and motion) for the entire mechanism comes from a clock, “like the beating heart of the machine,” our guide explains. The mechanism is powered by a system of nine weights – one for clock and 8 for different axels of system

All is built to scale to fit into the space – an astonishing 1 to 1 trillion – and everything is turning so slowly, you can’t detect motion visually. Every planet has its own calculated speed, so Mercury takes 88 days to make one full rotation; Venus takes 224 days; Earth takes 365 days plus 76 hours while the moon takes 29 ½ days to go around the earth (it shows the phases of the moon); Mars takes 687 days; Jupiter, with four moons (the number known at the time), takes 11 years, 315 ⅓ days for its rotation; and Saturn, the furthest known planet at the time, actually has rings and 5 moons and takes 29 years plus 164 days for its rotation.

How do they know the planetarium is still working when everything moves so slowly?

“Everything is connected, so we check what moves daily: the date, zodiac sign, day of week.” On December 31, a special nail pushes the gears into motion to flip to the new year.

Eise Eisinga was such a visionary, two years after finishing his remarkable machine, he wrote a 90-page manual explaining how to maintain it.

“Every 22 years, we follow 5 steps – take board down, sand down, paint the years, let the paint dry, then replace it in the attic,” our guide says. The wheels are so big and move so slowly, they clean the gears once or twice a year.

Eisinga’s son took over when he died, and the planetarium remained in the family for 140 years until 1922 when his great granddaughter was the last in the family to maintain the planetarium. Then the City of Franeker took over its management.

Most of the mechanism is original (Mercury had to be replaced after being damaged in World War II) but they have had to change the ropes for the gears and pulleys.

After the presentation, we are able to climb the stairs to the attic to peer into where the wheels and gears are laid out.

Eisinga came to Franeker with his wife because it had the second largest university in the country and was a center for learning that drew famous scientists. But you can appreciate how trade with the world not only gave Netherlands the wealth to pursue science and innovation, but the access to and transfer of knowledge, not to mention a culture of Enlightenment that was open to new ideas and discovery. And Eise Eisinga was wealthy enough that he could afford to make natural science a hobby.

It is a humbling experience to imagine such expertise and craft hundreds of years ago, before the tools and instruments we have today.

The museum offers several permanent exhibits: Eisinga’s former wool combing establishment, an extensive collection of historical astronomical instruments, Eisinga’s mathematical and astronomical manuscripts which you can digitally peruse, all marvelous juxtapositions to an interactive permanent exhibition, De Ruimte (Space) that opened in 2016, as well as that delightful video conversation between “Eise” and a modern-day Dutch astronaut (English subtitles).

I peek into a room to see the finishing touches on a new temporary exhibit: a spectacular astronomical cabinet from 1771 by Jean Paulus and Prof. Ghiesbregt. “After long wanderings, this Belgian instrument came into possession of Bert Degenaar, a famous Dutch antique collector. On his behalf, the instruments were completely restored and made functional again by horologist Pieter de Ruiter. The 3 meter wide and over 2.5 meter high cabinet is equipped with various globes, planetariums (including an unprecedented representation of the 5th-century worldview of Martianus Capella) and the 16th-century heliocentric worldview of Copernicus. A number of dials provide information about various time indications, calendars, the position of the planets, the phases of the moon, and the orbit of Jupiter’s four largest moons.” The exposition also includes a large collection of original drawings of the various instruments. 

All of this goes to serve as a literal display of what The Enlightenment was all about, which largely due to mass printing and trade, made its way to the New World, as well, and was foundational to the Founders of the United States.

Admission to Eise Eisinga’s planetarium is 6E (a HUGE bargain).

Eise Eisingastraat 3, 8801 KE Franeker, phone +31 (0) 517–393 070, info@eisinga-planetarium.nl, https://www.eisinga-planetarium.nl/en/plan-your-visit/, https://www.eisinga-planetarium.nl/en/the-planetarium/

Thankfully, we have enough time to appreciate what’s here at the planetarium (this is important), though I could easily have spent another hour.

We continue on our 36-mile bike route which follows much of the a famous 11-city, 200-km bike tour, and in the course of two days, we will visit six of the 11 and have the opportunity to collect stamps (like passport stamps) on postcards our guides have provided.

By the time we ride into Bolsward, one of the Eleven Frisian Cities, the rain has stopped. Here we see one of the art installations we have been told about – this one looks like Toothless from “How to Train Your Dragon.”.

Bolsward is really beautiful, and I am entranced by the magnificence of The Court of Justice building, now a museum, where I get to climb into the tower built on top of the Court in 1617 (a really improbable and unsafe construction).

But this is the first day when I see why people would get an e-bike in the Netherlands – I’m guessing I am pushing through or against 15 mph winds.

In the evening, our guide, Edith, leads a walking tour of Makkum– it’s just me and a couple from Alberta, Canada. Edith points to homes that have a Coat of Arms or some indication of who lived there, when the fellow shows us his ring with a Coat of Arms. He turns out to be a descendent of the Trip family, one of the wealthiest, most powerful families in Netherlands.

He relates more of his family’s fascinating story as we sit in a historic pub with centuries old Delpht tiles of great 17^th century trading ships, noting more than once than the family fortune had been long gone and his branch of the family emigrated to Canada. It’s like having someone from that time tell their story.

Trip’s family’s coat of arms, he relates, has three zoltbommel (wooden shoes) – a nod to the fact that the family started by manufacturing wooden shoes.

Then, brothers Jacob and Elias Trip went into river barges, got rich, then expanded into sea trade. They had a connection with an iron factory which they parlayed into weapons manufacture, arming the Dutch rebels against the Spanish in its 80-year war for independence, 1568-1648 (apparently selling arms to both sides).

Trip was among the original investors of the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost-indische Compagnie, VOC), in 1602, the first public company to issue stock and the first truly multinational corporation, transforming global commerce and trade (at its peak, the company would have been worth $7 trillion in today’s dollars, the most valuable company in history). The VOC was granted a monopoly on Dutch trade with Asia and also possessed the power to wage war, make treaties, govern territories, and even mint its own currency, as if a nation-state. So much of what we experience on our trip goes back to the Dutch East India Company.

Meanwhile, the Trips became one of the richest and most important families in Netherlands. Portraits painted by Rembrandt of his relatives Jacob Trip (1576-1661) and his wife, Margaretha de Geer, are in the National Gallery and Ryksmuseum. Their sons, Louis and Hendrick Trip, became fabulously wealthy arms merchants, and built the Trippenhuis in 1662 once the widest residence in Amsterdam and on the list of top 100 Dutch heritage sites.

Edith adds that the Netherlands was one of the first republics in the world and makes the claim that its declaration of independence in 1581, provided a model for Thomas Jefferson in 1776, and was printed on paper from a Dutch paper mill.

“We are now a kingdom, but we started as a republic. Our constitution limits the power of king, our monarchy is more about public relations, like the United Kingdom.”

The first king of the Netherlands, Napoleon’s brother Louis who reigned from 1806-1810, started an art collection, which he brought to TrippenHuis – in essence the first Ryksmuseum. Trippenhuis was where Rembrandt’s “Night Watch: hung until 1851 and since 1887, has housed the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

Biking Makkum to Stavoren, Sailing to Enkhuizen  

Day 7’s ride takes us from Makkum to Stavoren, from where our ship, Leafde fan Fryslân, will sail across lake IJsselmeer to Enkhuizen, the endpoint of our trip. There is a prediction of rain today and strong wind, so the guides suggest I do the shorter ride (19 miles) and promise I won’t miss out on anything I will regret (the longer route, 30 miles, goes along several Frisian Lakes).

Among the highlights of the ride are coming across a house deliberately built in an upside-down version of a traditional Frisian home (a bit surreal and you have to wonder), and a historic windmill, De Nylannermole, which the sign says dates from 1784, though its history goes back to 1624 (I’m trying to figure out the Dutch). At one point, I see the windmill with a wind turbine in the distance behind it, and later, we see windsurfers and sailboats – all reflections of how the Dutch have embraced wind.

We stop for lunch in a tiny little village as rain comes (we sit under umbrellas outside), and then continue on to Hindeloopen (where we should have cycled for lunch), an old trading town famous for a traditional decorative painting style. Hindeloopen seems to be the epicenter for cycling.

This is a very charming village, where I go to explore and find the Grotte Kerk, dating back to the Middle Ages. This building dates from 1632.

As we finish our bike tour, we come across (actually riding through) a major, 150 km, bike race.

I finish the ride 1:15 pm, hoping I made the right choice in biking the shorter route, and have some time to explore Stavoren before we sail.

There is yet another one of the art installations (this one a giant fish), but I am particularly intrigued by the sculpture of “The Lady of Stavoren” here, and the moral to the story it offers.

“The Lady of Stavoren” legend dates from when the city was the largest and richest in Friesland. Many of the merchant ships were owned the Lady of Stavoren who ordered one of her captains to “Bring me the finest treasure in the world.” He brought back a grain that transformed into pure gold in the midday sun. She forced him to throw it into the sea. A fisherman foretold that she would be punished and at some point beg for grain. Later, two of her ships were lost at sea and she became a beggar woman, while the place where the grain was tossed turned into a sandbank, where a plant that grew ears of corn grew up but yielded no grain.

We have an enjoyable sail back to Enkhuizen, a gala farewell dinner, and then I go off to explore the historic town, which is really worth more time than I will have before I have to return to Schiphol Airport early the next day. (Suggestion: arrive the day before the ship sails to give yourself some time to enjoy Enkhuizen.)

More information, Boat Bike Tours, www.boatbiketours.com, 203-814-249.

Next: Zuiderzee Museum is Not to be Missed in Enkhuizen

See also:

SETTING SAIL ON BOAT BIKE TOURS’ ISLANDHOPPING TOUR TO THE WADDEN SEA

BOATBIKETOURS’ NETHERLANDS ISLANDHOPPING: THE TEXEL ROADS YIELDS UP ITS TREASURE

BOAT BIKE TOURS NETHERLANDS ISLANDHOPPING: SAILING THE WADDEN SEA, BIKING, EXPLORING TERSCHELLING, HARLINGEN

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