Pilgrim shoemakers from Holland

Our museum is just next to the Way of St.-James leading through Lausanne. Occasionally some pilgrims on their way to Santiago di Compostella in Galicia, Spain, also find their way to our museum. Needless to say that shoes where and still are the main means of locomotion for the pilgrims. Today we had the visit of two special pilgrims from the Netherlands, both also well initiated in the art of medieval shoe making. Occasionally you can encounter them at the archaeological park ARCHEON in Alphen a/d Rijn. For us it was a surprise visit of fellow shoemakers, for them a special discovery. We sat for hours and talked about medieval shoes and medieval shoe making.

Surprise visit

With a museum measuring barely 12 square meters (129 sq.ft) it becomes hard to deal with busloads of visitors. Occasionally it does happen that a travel organizer finds a reference to our museum and intends to send us a busload of people. Usually they check with us first for details to find out that this will not be possible, but this time they did not.

So what to do if you get a phone call asking if the museum is open within the next hour, you agree and an hour later you have 30 to 40 people showing up? We mastered the problem by putting out collection on a wall in front of our museum and improvised a guided tour of our collection out in the street. What looked at first as a confusion turned very quickly into a happy experience for all. Our luck was, that the weather was in our favor.