Famous People?

Whilst walking around my 'route de poste' this week I was starting to get annoyed by the names of the streets. The area I deliver to has many streets named after people. But I realised that I didn't know who any of them were.

Antonius Bieleveltstraat
Franciscus Romanusweg
Karel de Vogelstraat
Gebroeders Hermansstraat
Louis Loyensstraat
Matthias Wijnandstraat
Theodoor Schaepkensstraat
Valentijn Clotsstraat
Antoon Lipkensstraat

So 9 names and no clue who one of them is.

Time to do something about it;

Antonius Bielevelt

born in Maastricht in 1576, Bielevelt was an artist. Some of his works can be found in churches in Florence and his materpiece 'The Holy Family' hangs in the Uffici Gallery in Florence.

The Holy Family by Antonius Bielevelt 1644

Franciscus Romanus

born Gent (Belgium) Mar 23rd 1647, Romanus was a laypreacher and architect. He restored the 'Dominican' church in Maastricht and rebuilt the first arch of the Maas Bridge.

In 1865 he went to Paris to restore the Pont Neuf bridge over the Seine, he was also involved with the restoration of Ront Royale over the Seine.

Karel de Vogel

Also an artist born in Maastricht in 1663. He worked mostly in Rome and painted mainly flowers which earned him his Italian name 'Carlo del Fiore'. A lot of his works can be seen in German Museums.

Gebroeders Hermans

The brothers Hermans; Lodewijk and Franciscus Bernadus born both in Maastricht 1750 and 1745 respectively. Both artists. Lodewijk painted still-life, mostly flowers and fruit. In the state archives in Maastricht 8 paintings recovered from the the St. Nicholas Church can be found.

Frank was a art teacher in the Central Latin school of art in Masstricht, where he was well known as an historical artist.

Louis Loyens

Lodewijk (Louis for short) born 1689 in Maastricht, was a magistrate and clerk of the court in Liege. He put together the Chronicals of Maastricht from which all future chronicles were formed.

Matthias Wijnand

born in Maastricht in 1643, Matthias was Canon for the 'St. Servaas' capital. Wijnand left all his worldy goods to the Maastricht students studying Philosophy and Theology in Leuven. This set a precedent and later the Mayor and Priests of the St. Matthias and St. Servaas Churches gave out study finances in honour of his gesture.

Theodoor Schaepkens

born in Maastricht 1810, Theo was also an artist. Scholar of the school for artists in Maastricht, later the Antwerp art academy and later in Italy and France. He painted a great number of historical paintings, portraits, etchings and lithographs.

Valentijn Clots

Clots was a military engineer and produced topographical maps of Maastricht and ink drawings of the city. He was a devotee of East Indian ink and colours made from natural products.

Antoon Lipkens

born in Maastricht 1782, Tony was a civil engineer/surveyor and later became an Engineer/Auditor in Luxembourg. Lipkens was founder of the Delft Academy, today known as Technical University of Delft.

Well now I know. Not sure if I will gain anything from it but.

Grampohone

I went to immense trouble about 6 months ago to find a stylus for an old turntable I have so I could listen to some of my old 12"s. After 2 unsuitable ones being sent I evetually found the correct on which cost almost 20 Euros.

But dues to the effort and inconvenience of having to use an old amp to set it up which is a bit tempremental and has a tendancy to have fits of deafening feedback it was soon retired to the attic again.

Yesterday whilst flicking through a catologue I saw a picture of a turntable and was surprised to see they are on sale again and quite popular. The attraction being a USB connection to link to your PC so you can convert your old records to your storage device. At only 80- Euros I think I might add this to my Christmas list.

Maybe if enough of us children of the 70's 80's buy these there may be limited edition novelty vinyl being added to the thousands of options in distributing your music.

Marijuana in Maastricht

The Mayor speaks out about the drugs policy in Maastricht. Before he had chance to dye his brows.



And the hip version forthe kids;

Working in the City

I was getting fed up with my first post round and the immense amount of cycling up into the countryside so I took on a city 'round' aswell. And when they offered me the neighbouring section of the city of Maastricht it seemed an easy decision to give suburbia a 'boot' and become a "city boy".



So now I am delivereing post to 2 sections of the centre of Maastricht where I can enjoy the river with the fog in the morning, the sun reflecting off it in the afternoon and the sunsets in the late afternoon (now 5pm).

The best part is that my first round is in 'Wijk' . For me one of the most interesting parts of Maastricht. The best shops, the best restaurants, the best bars, but still not realised by most of the tourist population so it remains pretty quiet most of the time. I deliver to art galleries, restaurants; as in: tapas, Indonesian, Japanese, French, posh 5***** restaurants, designer shops, fetish wear shops, antique book shops, Irish bars....you get the picture. And the fun bit is in this part of town you can't pop the post through the door as the place is normally open so you have to walk in and meet the owners and hand over the post.

The second route is mostly student territory and cheapish housing as far as the centre goes but the 'studes' are also intersperced with the old timers. The other day I had a fascinating conversation with an eighty year old woman about which postal company I worked for. And she told me even though I was still lost and having trouble finding the right postal box : "You are lost but you are living in Holland for more than one week I think.mmmm". Quite flattering considering it's taken 12 years to get such comments. Anyway I plan to have a cuppa with the old bird in the next few weeks as her hobby seems to be to look out for the 'postman' each day.



So I am quite sad to say goodbye to suburbia which I have enjoyed delivering to for the last three months but looking forward to getting to know the city and the people better.

Security Clearance

Another AWP clip.