Old Dutch Tour 2022
October 21
Delft
After leaving Haastrecht we drove to Delft. Delft is famous for its historical connections with the reigning House of Orange-Nassau, for being home to the painter Jan Vermeer, but mostly for its blue and white pottery.
Afie has booked us in the Best Western Museumhotel, it's not your typical Best Western. It's located right near the heart of Delft, and is next door to the Prinsentuin museum. In fact the hotel itself is a bit of a museum.
We were able to leave our bags at reception since we arrived a little early. It's a very short walk into the old town square from our hotel, so we wandered the square and streets while waiting for check-in time.
Just down the main road from our hotel is the de Roos windmill, the only remaining windmill of fifteen mills that once stood in the Delft region. 'The Rose' was built in 1679 and was used for the grinding of corn.
Some of the canals are nicer than the others
A wild Dave captured in his natural habitat
The Waalse Kerk was a monastery church of the former Sint-Agathalooster, Sint-Agathalooster is a former monastery that now houses the Museum Prinsenhof. The building history goes back to the early 1400s.
The Oude Kerk (Old Church), nicknamed Scheve Jan (Skewed John), is a Gothic Protestant church that was founded as St. Bartholomew's Church in the year 1246.
Its most recognizable feature is a 75-meter-high brick tower that leans about two meters from the vertical. During its construction the foundations were not strong enough to support the building, and the church began to lean. They tried to hide the lean by making the turrets slightly smaller on one side, and a few other visual changes, but it still leans.
The Stadhuis Delft (City Hall) dating back to 1618, is a Renaissance style building on the Markt across from the Nieuwe Kerk. It is the seat of the city's government as well as a popular venue for civic wedding ceremonies.
The Nieuwe Kerk tower on the Markt
The Nieuwe Kerk is a Protestant church, The New Church, formerly the church of St. Ursula (14th century), is the burial place of the princes of Orange. It's not as nice inside as the Old Church, but it has an a-maz-ing tower.
The church tower was erected in 1396-1496, it is the second highest in the Netherlands, after the Domtoren in Utrecht. The tower has 376 steps and reaches a height of 85 metres, there is no elevator. The tower itself has a total height of 108.75 metres. After missing out on going up the Domtoren in Utrecht, we weren't going to miss this.
We left Afie to go shopping in the Markt, and wound our way up the 376 steps. Oh, and one important thing, it's two way traffic, you come back down the same stairs you climbed up. The further you go, the narrower it gets, each level meant more backing up, reversing direction to let people pass or literally climbing over each other squished against the side walls.
The first level viewpoint, through dirty glass
The second view point in the fresh air balconies
The third and final viewpoint on itty bitty balconies
I do like the zoom lens on my Canon, it saves you a lot of walking.
One church we didn't get to go inside of was the Roman Catholic “Maria of Jesse” church which was built between 1875 and 1882. It was closed when we tried to enter, but I hear it is beautiful inside.We'll have to settle for seeing it from above.
The art here is definitely all over the place in terms of style and location
After climbing the tower and eating lunch at Willem of Oranje on the square, we are finally allowed to check-in.
We didn't stay in the room long, and as is tradition in Dutch cities, we went for another Canal Cruise
Our guide, was a local University student making extra money driving boats, she had lots of interesting information and history on Delft, and only bumped the sides of the canals a couple times.
We learned about how each year hundreds of bikes are pulled out of the canals. They have to be, so the boats can travel safely down the waterways. Apparently it's not accidental, not people bumping bikes while parking, or drunk people making a wrong turn. It's students that have finished their school year, and as part of the celebration ride their no longer needed bikes into the canal.
The Gemeenlandshuis is the headquarters of the Delfland Water Board, it was built in 1505
From the Canal we walked to the edge of town.
The Oostport (eastern gate) in Delft is an example of Brick Gothic northern European architecture that was built around 1400. Around 1510, the towers were enhanced with an additional octagonal floor and high spires. This is the only city gate remaining in Delft, the others were demolished in the 19th century.
Even the swan seemed sad about being in this gross canal
That's what a canal is supposed to look like
After a nice dinner at Het Konings Huys on the Markt, we headed back to the room and
crashed.
No Hallmark movies on their channels.
October 22
With our hotel, breakfast is included, the breakfast room is outside the hotel and down a lane to another part of the Best Western complex. Much like the hotel, the breakfast room seems like it is a museum too.They have a manual bean grinder, an orange squeezer, and even a funky toaster. There's a wide selection of food, and they will bring you custom egg items if you want.
After breakfast we took the train to Leiden
Leiden
Much like Delft, Leiden is a university city, it has been since 1575. Leiden has been one of Europe's most prominent scientific centers for more than four centuries. One of the world's most famous painters, Rembrandt, was born and educated in Leiden.
Molen de Valk tower windmill dating back to 1611
The Hartebrugkerk is part of the Parish of Saints Peter and Paul. The official name is Our Lady of Immaculate Conception. The building was completed in 1836, and in 1892 the church was provided with a new tower.
I see a few mechanical musical carriages here, I always have to stop and watch after we saw the inner workings on our river cruise..
The Burcht van Leiden (castle of Leiden) is one of the oldest examples of a castle in the Netherlands. The structure is located in the middle of Leiden, on the spot where the two arms of the Rhine converge. The castle first appears in written sources from 1143.
The views from the wall of the castle allow you to see most of the city.
The Hooglandse Kerk (highland church) is a Gothic church building in use by the Protestant Church. In 1377 the construction of the grand church starts and isn't completed for over a century.
The mechanical clock controls are out in the open to see how they work
The collection box outside the bathroom... "and so the adventure begins"
How to be an annoying tourist in 3 easy steps...
1) spot a very photo worthy building or monument and walk in front of it
2) stop in a group in front of the monument and start looking at your phones
3) keep standing there even when you notice people are waiting to take a picture
The facade of the Leiden City Hall dates from 1595, the town hall was largely lost during a devastating fire in 1929. The facade was rebuilt, but the building behind was completely new.Located behind the City Hall on the river side is a large farmers market.
The Pieterskerk is a late-Gothic Dutch Protestant church in Leiden dedicated to Saint Peter.The present building took approximately 180 years to build, starting in 1390.
This is no ordinary church, not only does it have a full bar /lounge setup, it also runs an escape room.
We tried to have lunch at the Italian restaurant in city hall, but they were closed for 30 minutes because lack of staff and too backed up in the kitchen. So we ended up at Restaurant Burgerzaken Leiden for some tasty and huge burgers.
Leiden's first concert hall the Stadsgehoorzaal was built in in 1826, in 1889 the building was destroyed by a major fire. Rebuilding was completed in 1891. It is an imposing building in the style of Neo-Renaissance architecture. The front facade has a colonnade, which gives the Stadsgehoorzaal the necessary allure. Despite the great fire, the entire interior of the Breezaal and the paneling and balconies of the Grote Zaal have been preserved.
watching people play VR games on a busy street is actually pretty funny
Rembrandt park is a beautiful tribute park full of assorted trees in honour of Leiden's famous artist.
Molen de Put windmill is a postmill, this corn mill was rebuild in 1987 on its original location. The original mill dates back to 1619.
Morschpoort is the western city gate of Leiden, was built out of stone in 1669. The gate with an octagonal dome served as a prison for a long time. The name is derived from De Morsch , the marshy meadow area outside Leiden.
We made our way past the houseboats of Leiden, and jumped on the train to Schiphol Airport.
Somebody should have reviewed the 'wear a mask' sign
We went to Schiphol to pick up our checked bags, and headed back to Delft to start
figuring out our suitcases for the trip home.
2 days left. We might need to buy a suitcase.
Once we were back in Delft, we tried to get dinner at Stromboli's but without a reservation they were full, instead we ended up at DePiZZAbakkers for some pretty sad pizza's.
October 23
It was our last full day in the Netherlands, so today we decided to take a tram to the Schevinegin seaside.
Scheveningen
Grand Hotel Amrâth Kurhaus
It's like a Dutch version of Coney Island, or Blackpool, or whatever tourist trap beach-side area you're most familiar with.
After some quality beach time, and checking out the shops, we jumped on a tram to Madurodam.
Madurodam
Madurodam is a miniature park and tourist attraction in the Scheveningen district of The Hague. It is home to a range of 1:25 scale model replicas of famous Dutch landmarks, historical cities and large developments. Madurodam was named after George Maduro who fought the Nazi occupation forces, first in the army and later as a member of the Dutch resistance, and who died at Dachau concentration camp in 1945. George Maduro's parents donated the funds needed for the Madurodam project, as a memorial to their son. The park was opened in 1952 and has since been visited by tens of millions of visitors.
It's a little bit silly mixed with a little bit fascinating. Maybe not targeted at our age group.
A lot of the displays were interactive, so kids could make the troops march, put out fires on the riverboats, steer the boats, and in the most interesting interaction, become a DJ to make the people rave.
Now that we had a chance to revisit all of the places that we had visited in our Old Dutch Tour, we could jump on another tram and head to the city center of Den Haag (The Hague).
Den Haag
The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of the Netherlands is Amsterdam, The Hague has been described as the country's de facto capital. Den Haag also hosts both the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
It certainly leads the country in variety of building types and weird statues.
The area of the most interest to me was the Het Plein square, an area that contains the Binnenhof, the Noordeinde Palace, the Mauritshuis museum, the Nieuwe Kerk, the Grote Kerk, the Old City Hall and the City Hall are located here. Architecture varies from medieval up to 20th century.
Voormalig Ministerie van Justitie (former Ministry of Justice)
It's more than a little disappointing when you come around the corner and the whole Binnenhof complex is behind a wall while it is under renovations. I'm not even going to tell you the history of this massive construction site.
We almost walked away, but I saw an area where you could go around, and we could at least get into the Mauritshuis area. Mauritshuis is a small world-class museum with a formidable collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings from the 17th century, such as the Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer and the Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt. It's an amazingly beautiful building from the outside, and we almost missed seeing it. Unfortunately they were hosting a private event and we couldn't go inside.
At least we got to see a little of the Binnenhof grounds and castle area.
Which brings us to this, an outdoor, out in the open urinal. Norine went on a 15 minute debate about how unfair this is for women. It took us 10 of those minutes to realize she was looking for a bathroom at the same time. We may have been laughing about that affront to society for some time after that.
We stopped for some drinks on the square, sipping a beer while seagulls assaulted Willem of Orange.
We took one last wander down the City Center shopping area and bought a "carry-on" suitcase to fit the extras that we had purchased over the last 6 weeks. Most of the extras were Christmas ornaments along with a few smoky beers. Having had an adventurous day, we jumped back on the tram again and headed back to Delft.
At the Delft Train Station, we tried to refund the unused funds on our train cards, but everything is automated in Delft, and refunds don't fall into an automated category, so we'll have to do it in Schiphol airport in the morning.
We went back to Stromboli's and this time they let us in (without reservations), maybe because it was Sunday, maybe because of the weather. It was an excellent dinner, so much better than what they called "pizza" the night before.
As we are finishing up our meals, it's thunderbolts and lightning big time...
so we ordered dessert and delayed our walk back to the hotel. We managed to time our walk
back to the hotel during a slight break in the storm.Great way to wrap up our final night
in the Netherlands.
October 24
In the morning we had one last Dutch breakfast,then I went and got the car, drove it down a pedestrian/bike only road, and parked in front of the Best Western to load all of our luggage.
Mural in walkway to the Delft car-park
Peace out, Delft, it's been fun!
With our bags reorganized and one extra carry on suitcase, We headed to Schiphol airport to return to Iceland for just one day. Because our originals flights that had to be rescheduled were round trip YVR-KEF, we had to use the Iceland to Vancouver leg when rescheduling. That's OK, we would make the most of it.
Afie's flight to Canada was in one terminal, our flight to Iceland was in another, so we parted ways and wasted time in the airport until our Transavia flight finally departed. The girl at the KLM desk was super rude with a "can't do anything for you." when we inquired about our friend being in the lounge, so we sent her an email goodbye, which she received back in Canada.
Turns out our luggage was too heavy, and our new "carry-on" suitcase was too big to carry on, but the Transavia agent put them all through with no extra charges. That almost made up for the huge lineups to check-in, and to get through security, at least we didn't have to go through customs as we were traveling from one EU country to another.
And thus concluded our Old Dutch portion of the trip, we just have one more short stop to make, somewhere we have been before.