Dutch Santa

This is my Dutch Santa bought on a trip to Valkenburg Christmas Market. well worth a visit.

Valkenburg is a delightful little hill town in the Netherlands built around a romantic ruined castle. The Christmas market ?Fluweelengrot? takes place in beautifully lit Velvet Cave which runs underneath the town.

The Velvet Cave
A labyrinth of mysterious passages situated under the Castle Ruins, the Velvet Cave was created around the year 1050. The caves are closely connected to the history of the Castle of Valkenburg. The blocks of marlstone extracted from the cave were used to construct the Castle of Valkenburg as well as other buildings in the area. The extraction of the marlstone resulted in an extensive labyrinth of ancient passages. These secret escape passages, only discovered in 1937, would have originally enabled the knights and their warriors to secretly vanish from the castle in times of war, and attack the enemy from behind.

The Velvet Cave contains numerous mysteries and a treasure of impressive mural carvings, inscriptions, and exceptional sculptures in the soft marlstone walls, as well as a romantic refuge chapel dating back to the French occupation period. In World War II, during the occupation of the Germans, the cave served as a shelter for Jewish people, locals, and American troops.