Back to Delft

Delft was maybe my favorite town on the trip. I can't say that with any amount of certainty, since the whole trip was wonderful, and I enjoyed things about every place we stayed, but I will go out on a limb and say Delft was my favorite. Ask me tomorrow, and I may have a different answer.

Anyway, one activity we did a couple of times on the trip was climb towers. Every town has a town hall or at least one church with a tall steeple. If they are open to tourists, it is a great idea to climb them, if not for the exercise, then at least for the view.  In Delft, it was the Nieuwe Kerk tower that was open, so up we climbed; all 378 steps. As you can see, the view was stupendous.

The Tower was not the only selling point for a visit to the church - it also has the tomb of William I of Orange, the leader who helped to drive out the Spanish from the Netherlands in the 16th century.  He is buried there almost on accident - he was assassinated in Delft, and since the country was at war and his family's traditional burial place was out of reach, he was buried in the church.  Since then, all of the members of House of Orange has been buried in Delft (except William and Mary, since they were also the monarchs of Britain, and are buried in Westminster Abbey). Doesn't his chair and ruff look uncomfortable?

For such a (relatively) small town, Delft sure had some interesting residents.  Johannes Vermeer lived his entire life in Delft, and although none of his paintings are currently housed in Delft, there is a very interesting interpretive center dedicated to his life and work. They have displays of how his workroom may have looked, and interpretations of some of the symbolism in his images, using reproductions of his paintings.  They also have this lovely set-up where you can pose for a picture as a Vermeer painting. You can see a copy of the original here.

To my immense regret, we never stopped at this store for an appelflappen, a sort of apple fritter/filled donut/all around yummy pastry. We walked by it many times, and I managed to remember to take a picture of it, but we never stopped. Sigh. Guess we have to go back.

Delft

I'm back, and I come with pictures!  We had a wonderful, lovely trip to the Netherlands and Belgium.  I am going to play it out a while here on the blog, so be patient.  Today, we start with Delft, home of Delftware pottery and Vermeer, and burial place of the Dutch Royal family.

Here you have one of the bike parking lots at the Delft train station. Notice that I said "one of" the parking lots. People, there were a lot of bikes in the Netherlands. Most people seemed to use really old, rusty, beat up bikes - so that they would be less upset when the bike got stolen or vandalized.

We had perfect weather for the entire trip. Most days were sunny and pleasant - not to cold, not too hot - much better than the weather in Arkansas for the same time period!

I would not want to try to parallel park my car along the canals. Do you see how close they get? And that is the driver's side of the car! I guess you really have to get it right on your test, huh? We never saw anything that gave statistics for the number of cars fished from canals each year, but I would bet, given the amount of alcohol consumed, and the closeness of the maneuvers, that it is a fair number.*

This is the courtyard of our hotel in Delft, Hotel de Emauspoort. If you find yourself in need of a place to stay in Delft, I cannot recommend them highly enough. The food, oh the food... Dutch pancakes, fresh croissants, hard rolls and cheese, fruit salad.  And the room we had was lovely too.

We climbed to the top of the first tower of the trip in Delft.  From it, you could see the giant IKEA (not in this picture), and all the way to Rotterdam and Den Haag.  Over 370 steps to the top, but definitely worth the climb.

The town hall in Delft, the first of several town halls we would see. This square is not on the scale of later squares, but is delightful nonetheless. It was surrounded by tourist shops and restaurants.  In the evening, the cafes were full of people sitting in the sun, enjoying the weather, the food and drink, and their friends.

So, there is the first installment. If you want a fuller, quicker version, you will just have to come hit me up for the slideshow in person. Otherwise, sit tight and more will be revealed tomorrow.

*Update: After doing a Google search for cars in canals in Amsterdam, I came up with several reports of an, err, interesting (illegal) activity that afflicted Amsterdam last summer: Smart Car tipping.