April 27th! Happy Kings Day!!
We first went to the Oude (Old) and Niew (new) church as we wanted to climb to the top. Sadly, they were both closed for King’s Day. The old church has a very slanted tower. The canal used to go where the tower now stands. The ground was soft and therefore the tower started to lean. The Royal Family is buried in the Niew church.
We walked around Delft. The have a huge market – like personal yard sales, and the shops also put things out for sale on the streets. Apparently the only day in Netherlands that you can have a yard sale is on Kings Day!
We walked to the only remaining old city gate of Delft. It was built in the early 1400’s. there originally was 4 in total and there was a wall around the city.
We went to the Delft museum where we learned the history. Similar porcelain started in China and the Dutch replicated it and made it their own. We met one of the painters who was painting a huge vase. They had just sold one for 24,000 EU so he was painting a new one. He said it takes him 4 weeks to paint it, roughly 160 hours. Wow!
It was so busy when we came back into the city centre with all the partiers, bands, people jumping up and down to the music. One girl was jumping right beside the canal and so high, I was surprised she didn’t fall in.
We found a restaurant and ate inside as we found a table. It is a nice day so everyone wants to sit outside. We all had crochets sandwiches and Bob could cross another thing off his birthday list! And Bart was happy as he had wanted one ever since arriving to the Netherlands.
After dinner we did a little bit of souvenir shopping, and also picked up some Dutch treats from Albert Hijn grocery store. Bob got Rookworst (smoked Dutch sausage). We met at Tracy and Bob’s for a fun evening again of lekker Dutch eats and drinks! And finished off with Portuguese tarts that Steve and Andrea picked up in town. A perfect day!
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