After Haarlem we drove the rest of the way to Delft. I have been wanting to visit Delft ever since moving to Europe and it's one of those things that gets moved from weekend to weekend on our calendar. Well, we finally made it and Delft was everything I had dreamed of and more! The gorgeous fall weather may have contributed, but it really is a beautiful city. Our hotel was on a cute little square surrounded by restaurants. Sleeping 4 to a room actually worked out surprisingly well.
On Sunday we walked around the old section of town, beginning with the main market square. Here are some photos of the town hall, new church, and the house where Johannes Vermeer was born.
Here we are on a bridge over what is possibly the oldest city canal in the Netherlands. The old church is in the background and it's tower has quite the tilt. The red plush clog slippers belong to a Dutch tourist who I stalked in an attempt to photograph his footwear because I thought it was so funny.
Here are the leaning tower of the old church and a windmill that supposedly sails every Saturday. It looks like it's currently under construction so I'm glad that we didn't hurry to Delft from Haarlem just to see it on Saturday! Patrick patronized the fish stand pictured below, est. 1432! Hopefully the fish were fresh but we wouldn't know since we could not for the life of us identify what fried and breaded meat he had ordered. The more he tried to figure it out the less he was able to enjoy the food, until finally Patrick "The Finisher" Hudock actually threw out food. Amazing. We took a canal cruise to keep Brennan happy and learned, among other things, that about 400 bikes per year end up in the canals. The tour guide blamed this on drunk college students.
After our boat tour we grabbed some snacks from a bakery and ate lunch on a picnic bench back at our home square. Isla decided to wake up at that point and we took some photos of her transition from sleepy to smiley.
After dinner we strolled back to the main square for some ice cream before watching some Dutch tv and going to bed. On Monday we drove Patrick to his beachside hotel in den Haag and I hopped out of the car long enough for us to get a picture in front of the North Sea. The 2.5 hour drive home could have been worse and Brennan actually fell asleep for about a half hour, which is a miracle these days. Overall it was a great trip and I'm so happy to have such nice memories of Delft.
2 comments:
Looks like a lot fun! Jealous that you can take weekend trips to such neat places! It sounds like Isla is a good sleeper, so I am sure that helps! Miss you!
Buddy, minor technicality but the fish stand was established in 1342. 1432, please, it was 90 years young by then. Thanks for a great blog =)
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