Walking on the roof of a cathedral

This year the city of Den Bosch, situated in the south of the Netherlands, is celebrating the famous artist Jheronimus Bosch. Jheronimus lived 500 years ago in this city and painted iconic works depicting (often) the fight of good vs evil. He inspired many people in his time, including the people who worked on the Saint Jan's Cathedral. This can be seen by the many ornaments on this church which look very similar to the characters and creatures in his paintings. Because of these festivities the city organized a lot of activities, one of them being guided tours of the church via scaffolding and through its gutters. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity we grabbed with both hands, to see the church and the city in an extraordinary way. 

I decided to travel light and take only my GX7 with the panasonic 14mm F2.5 with me. It was a trip with my wife and friends of ours, not a photo excursion. Also the wide angle 14mm would probably be best suited for the "job" at hand.

Arriving at the church you can see clearly see the scaffolding on the left, with many stairs leading to a plateau where our guide would tell us about the church. This day we had a mix of sun and rain but luckily during the tour we were blessed with good weather.

One of the facts our guide told us, is that one of the ornaments depicts an angel talking into a mobile phone. This off course wasn't an historical statue made by an artist with a Nostradamus like foresight. But was an idea of an artist about 10 years ago, who had to come up with ideas to replace some missing ornaments. It is now used to raise money for maintaining the church. You can call the angel and make a wish or confess your sins (we were told you can say anything, as long as it isn't rude). 

You can see the angel at the bottom of the middle window.

The city of Den Bosch (or 's-Hertogenbosch as it's also called), is a beautiful city, with many beautifully maintained old buildings, a busy city centre, surrounded by farmland and lots of trees and nature. Church and surroundings complementing each other, making the view therefore amazing.

Although the vantage point was pretty high, it wasn't scary and it all felt very safe.

I've been in a lot of churches, but being on the roof of one gives viewpoints that are very extraordinary.

Looking down on my wife ;-) when descending the many stairs back to ground level.

At ground level there was a small exposition of some of the restored ornaments. Some of them were pretty weird. There was one of a man scratching his behind and one of dog who...well...I don't really know what it was doing and was afraid to ask :)

 Than we went into the church, which turned out to be just as beautiful. The inside was decorated with colorful stain glass windows, many ornaments and chandeliers. ​

The church also had an impressive organ, made out of decorated wood and golden organ pipes.

The bright colors of the many stain glass windows looked amazing.

We were frequently looking up, as the church was decorated from top to bottom with beautiful artwork.

It was an amazing experience!