Mondays in Europe are sad for me– that’s when all the museums are closed. While we hit the main highlights in The Hague, we thought it would be fun to check out Delft. (Literally, on the opposite end of the tram line we took to the seaport, Scheveningen.) Most people know Delft from Delftware, the blue and white porcelain from the 17th century, (that was really copying from Chinese Ming Dynasty porcelain.) While there were plenty of souvenir shops with copies and companies still claiming to make Delftware, we went to check out the town center. Like so many old cities in Holland (and Belgium), there was plenty of beautiful architecture lining the quite canals. Really, this place is so beautiful.
See:
The center square has two main buildings flanking the marketplace; the Town Hall, and the Old Curch. Their placement is reflection of the age old battle between church and state. The Delft church has a very tall church tower.
DH and I climbed up that bad boy. See the level right above the clock? Yup, we were up there. We lost count of the incredibly steep, spiraling steps (well over three hundred). Probably because we were repeating, “Please don’t let me die” as we tried not to trip over the treacherous stairs. (Did I mention they were steep?) Whenever you read about someone in history dying from falling down stairs, and you look at your own staircase at home, you may think, “Well, maybe if they were carrying something heavy, and had been drinking, and you hit your head just right, maybe you would die.” These are the staircases that historically would do someone in. Think tight corkscrew, with no landings, entirely made of stone. One misstep, one misjudgment of the worn treads, and your body is bouncing around like pinball. But it was all worth it to see this:
See:
The center square has two main buildings flanking the marketplace; the Town Hall, and the Old Curch. Their placement is reflection of the age old battle between church and state. The Delft church has a very tall church tower.
DH and I climbed up that bad boy. See the level right above the clock? Yup, we were up there. We lost count of the incredibly steep, spiraling steps (well over three hundred). Probably because we were repeating, “Please don’t let me die” as we tried not to trip over the treacherous stairs. (Did I mention they were steep?) Whenever you read about someone in history dying from falling down stairs, and you look at your own staircase at home, you may think, “Well, maybe if they were carrying something heavy, and had been drinking, and you hit your head just right, maybe you would die.” These are the staircases that historically would do someone in. Think tight corkscrew, with no landings, entirely made of stone. One misstep, one misjudgment of the worn treads, and your body is bouncing around like pinball. But it was all worth it to see this:
Just incredible. You would see The Hague, and Rotterdam off in the distance. As a bonus, we now had another excuse to drink beer. (Not that we really needed it, of course.)
We wandered some more and saw the locals getting ready to watch their home team (who beat Italy 3-0) in the Euro-cup. The cafes set up televisions all along the square. (Holland plays France next, who went 0-0 with Romania.)
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