ボークルのおすすめランニングルート

The path has been raised with fresh gravel. Great! It's more passable, and the wet sections are now nice and dry.

a beautiful church, especially in May

This is due to a number of developments. For example, the forest in the Netherlands is getting older on average, as a comparison of the various Dutch forest statistics shows. The share of young forest is decreasing, the share of mature and old forest is increasing. More animals and plants live in old forests.

Gemert is an urbanized village in the municipality of Gemert-Bakel in the Dutch province of North Brabant, located in the Peelrand. Until the municipal reorganization in 1997, it was an independent municipality.

The Kèskesdijk is the road from Gemert to Handel. The official name of this road is: Handelseweg. This road has been used for centuries by pilgrims to Our Lady of Commerce. Along this road there are eight brick columns with a niche, and seven of them contain a group of statues that depict one of the Seven Sorrows of Mary. The eighth is at the beginning of this series and contains a group of images that provides an introduction to what is to follow. These are called kèskes (cabinets) in the Brabant dialect. The Kèskesdijk is centuries old, because it was already described in 1696. The kèskes were also mentioned in 1712. After being exposed to decay for years, they were replaced around 1890 by the current neo-Gothic examples.

What you see here is a special residential community.

Handel's chapel dates from the Middle Ages. It was founded after a statue of Mary was inexplicably found in the hawthorn. Several miracles also took place here in the 17th century. The place therefore became a place of pilgrimage. Over the centuries, the chapel has grown into a parish church.

The history of Handel as a place of pilgrimage for Mary starts around the beginning of the 13th century. Around 1220, a Bakel shepherd found a statue "on a thorn stock" just south of the current church in Handel. The statue is carved from wood, approximately 35 cm tall and depicts the Mother of God in a standing position with the baby Jesus on her left arm. No one knew where the statue came from. Soon the religious people began to venerate the statue. Mary distributed her favors to these "simple" people in the form of miraculous healings and answers to prayers. The Ox Chapel is not located on the spot where, according to legend, the statue of Mary was found in a thorn bush (hawthorn tree). The current parish church (formerly a chapel) was built near this thorn bush, where a spring spontaneously gushed (there was no water far in the area). Source and more information: Handelprocessie.nl