At 10, we left for the 20 min drive to Delft. We found a place to park (which is NOT easy here) and had to put in a 5 euro coin for 6 hours parking. Better safe than sorry. It was just a short walk down the street to The Koninklijke Porceleyne Fles
- The Royal Delft factory. We bought tickets for 12 euro ($16) for the museum/factory tour which was really quite interesting. We saw 2 short movies on the history of Delft porcelain and the making of Royal Delft. We saw a woman painting vases with what looked like black paint but contains cobalt oxide that turns blue when fired. There were many displays of various Delft pieces including a 13' by 16' 480 tiled replica of Rembrandt's painting "The Night Watchman". In the factory itself were tons of molds, greenware drying, a woman cleaning greenware, and several large modern kilns. Of course the tour ended in the gift shop. The least expensive item was a tiny vase for $106. They did have lots of non-Royal Delft items, and I bought several Xmas balls for Xmas presents. We had a cup of coffee looking out on the courtyard. The coffee came with a small square of good chocolate wrapped in Delft-like paper.
We decided finding a new parking place would be too difficult so we walked the mile to the market square. It was still cold (48 degrees) and sprinkling periodically, but we didn't mind. The main area of town does have several canals with bridges at most streets. The market is typical of Germany and the Netherlands - a huge square with a church at one end and town hall at the other with shops and restaurants lining the sides.
I took photos and then went into a delightful cheese store. After tasting a few, I liked a farmers cheese and a pesto Gouda (but didn't buy anything!) We then found the tourist center, talked to the lady behind the counter, bought a walking tour book for the map and info.
First we went to the Oude Kerk (old church). For $4.30 each we got tickets for both the old and new church. The old church was built around 1250 and has been (like most European churches) expanded, destroyed, rebuilt, remodeled, etc. I thought the stained glass windows were amazing if not that old. Delft had a huge fire in 1536 and then a huge explosion at the gunpowder depot in 1654, so all the old stained glass was destroyed. Most of the awesome stained glass was replaced in the 20th century. The other cool item about the old church is the beautiful 75'tower. A canal in front of the church was filled in before construction and during the tower construction it started to list (at one point 2 meters off plumb). It has been stabilized but is monitored carefully.
We walked back to the market square in search of lunch - warmth, a bathroom, and poffertjis (a small fat quarter-sized pancake sprinkled with powdered sugar and served with butter). We found all of the above at a cafe called Het ABC. I got toasted grilled cheese with tomato and Bill got mussels. The poffertjis were good, but not much different than fat pancakes. On the menu they had poffertjis a la Bill Clinton (served with strawberries and cream). Clinton came to Delft 15 years ago, and they are still impressed.
We went in the Newue Kerk on the square. It was also impressive except I liked the stained glass better in the old church. Here are buried famous royalty and persons of the Netherlands in crypts below the floor. There is a large monument to William of Orange. On the four corners of the monument are statues of ladies depicting 4 virtues. One of them was rather hysterical because it looks like she is holding a gold cowboy hat with veritas written on it.
We walked back to the car with a slight rain and wind. No ticket on the car. We made the drive back to Rotterdam and the hotel with a bit of traffic. We crashed in our room for a while. Finally at 8pm we decided that we should eat something so we went to a different restaurant down the street where we each got soup and split a burger. Bill got coconut curry soup and I got tomato/basil/cream soup. Both soups were spicy but quite good. The burger was decent too. We had wanted the famous Dutch pea soup, but apparently it is only served in the winter. We asked our charming waitress about it, and even though she spoke beautiful English, she did not know the word pea. Once she realized what we were talking about she was very excited to add that word to her vocabulary.
I am typing this on the shared computer in the hotel lounge since I can type so much better on a keyboard. A few items to note. Bicycles are almost as prevalent here as they are in China. They have the same bike lanes - wide and separated by medians from regular traffic lanes. So when one crosses the street we have to be very careful not to get hit by a bike. Also....no washcloths in the hotel bathrooms. I had thought about bring one from home and then forgot it. We had the same problem in Ireland. Go figure.
Tomorrow we will probably drive to Gouda to see the longest church in Holland with a ton of beautiful stained glass windows, a weigh house with a neat cheese museum inside, and then a windmill driven mill. It is something that Barbara and Holger weren't excited to do, so we will check that off our list and maybe buy some cheese!
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