Top two photos: the Old Church - leaning - and a curious scene in Delft; the old church and the Good Year blimp; two bottom photos: Kinderdijk area and the organ of the New Church; new church at one end of the square.
The walking tour for Delft took us a few days. There was a lot to see, and we had to take frequent chardonnay breaks - a term we picked up from Jack's cousin Bob when we were in Paris together - and of course, we had to take many photos. The guide took us to see where William the Silent was assassinated in 1572, at the Prisenhof, the prince's court, where he lived. He was then buried in the New Kerk, so many of the Dutch royal family have been buried there ever since. In the 20th century Holland's queens have included Wilhelmina, Juliana and now Beatrix, the present queen.
The walking tour took us to the house where Vermeer lived his adult life; nearby was the artist guild headquarters where Vermeer was certainly a member. It took us to the Dutch East India headquarters, the powerful company that ruled the seas in the 17th century. We walked the length of the old Delft and crossed a now busy city street by the river to stand where Vermeer must have stood to paint his "View of Delft". Some of the landmarks are gone; the gates to the city are no longer there and the Dutch East India company no longer has its extensive warehouse in sight. But the silhouette of the new church and the steeple of the old church are just as prominent, and the river is still a busy place, with private boats moored along the edge and people still making their way to and from the places of residence near the water. I guess what mars the scene are the cars scooting nonstop along the bridge. Nevertheless, it was quite exciting to stand in the same place where he stood nearly four hundred years before. At that time Delft was a leading Dutch city and quite prosperous. Once the East India company moved its headquarters to Amsterdam, Delft gradually declined.
One of the next sights was the Old Church, where the three famous people of Delft are buried: Vermeer, Grotius and Leeuwenhoek. I was anxious to see their monuments but I was also in fear of my life - the old church tower leans quite dangerously! The brochure says that when it was built they filled in a canal, and the material they used was not the strongest, so as soon as the tower started climbing in the sky, it started leaning - think the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The Dutch fooled with it for several years and then they said that they had solved the problem of its sinking and it was now secure. This pronouncement came in about the 14th century. I even asked the old gentleman at the church souvenir store; he said not to worry, they check it every hundred years or so, and it is perfectly safe. However, Jack happened to look at the sales slip that he received with his purchases, and it says in bold letters: Enter at your own risk!. You can see by my photo that the church tower is scary looking. I was glad to get out of there, no matter how much I wanted to see Vermeer's resting place.
It is so interesting to walk around these old cities which were so important in their heyday and see how the Dutch preserve their history and their important figures. I think they do an excellent job of trying to give the visitor a flavor of how these old towns flourished back in the 13th-17th centuries, while letting the modern city grow up around the old town. I don't know how they do it, but Holland seems to be in good economic shape and thriving.
We took a trip out of the city one day. We wanted to see Kinderdijk, an area near Delft that was declared a UN national heritage sight. It is where the Dutch built several windmills - there are still 19 there - to manage the sea from coming back on the land. It was complicated to get there, but the Michelin guidebook gave it a purple - their designation for not missing a sight - so we made the effort to get there.
We walked over to the train station and boarded the train to Rotterdam. Since this city was an important industrial city during WWII, it was bombed first by the Germans and then by the Allies, so nothing historical is left there. It is still very important economically, since it is near two important rivers: the Rhine and the Maas. It has so many new buildings that the Dutch call it Manhattan on the Maas; we weren't going to spend any time there, but this trip would give us an opportunity to at least see it. The train station was connected to its metro station of course, so we followed the signs and boarded one of their subway lines to the south of the city. The metro was very crowded that day; Holland was going to play in one of the knockout games of the World Cup and people were getting to work early so they could get home and watch the afternoon game.
We rode the metro to the south bus station and waited awhile for the bus that would take us farther south to the Kinderdijk. That bus ride was an hour long; it was already getting hot and it was very sunny. I wasn't really looking forward to a day in the sun, but I was hoping to find some shade. We finally got there - it is a huge expanse of canals with windmills situated every several hundred meters apart. Now it is a tourist area, but the windmills are actually run every month to keep them in condition. People actually live at the base of the windmills and maintain them. There were lots of people there, mostly on their bikes. We walked a mile or two to get good pictures of them. It was sunny and hot, but there was a nice breeze, so it was pleasant. After we walked a long distance we came back to the boat ride and spent an hour on the little boat which took us way out to see many more windmills. There were teen agers jumping off the small bridges to swim a bit in the clear water.
We decided we had enough of nature, so we trudged back to the bus stop - these buses may be few and far between but they show up always at the time they say will. We made our way slowly back to Rotterdam where we jumped on the metro, then took the train back to Delft. It was a long day, and we were tired, but it was fun to see what everybody thinks of when they think of Holland: the windmills. And, oh, by the way, Holland won the game that day, 1-0.
We did not got to a modern Delftware factory, but we did a bit of shopping for some typical porcelain for which Delft is known. We were going to Lugano the next week and we wanted to bring something to Carolina, our friend and mother of Teresa, our friend from Dallas.
We were getting ready to leave Delft and get to Gouda, the little town know for its cheese. We had a great time in Delft, but we were ready to push on and explore some more of Holland.
We checked out of our little hotel, gathered our belongings and took the walk to the train station. Again, the trip to the station would be longer than the train ride to the next stop. And I wasn't any too happy that it seemed to be getting hotter and hotter. We were lucky to have air conditioning in Delft; what would be our fate in Gouda? We would soon find out!
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