Delft

Amsterdam may be considered the epitome of a Dutch city with its canals, but I think Delft beats Amsterdam. I admit it is not half as big, but that may be part of its charm. There are many canals, and in summer big white lilies float on the water. Water traffic is limited, so the water lilies can thrive and blossom. On Saturdays there is an extensive market along the canals, as well as a special antiques market in the summer months. There is the regular bric-a-brac, but there are also some interesting finds, as well as antiquarian books, old maps and - it being Delft - , hand painted Dutch tiles, not just the Delft blue ones. 

bric-brac-along the canals

There are cafes and restaurants galore, a flower market, and a market with fresh produce. The stalls line the canals, in front of book stores and kitchenware shops. The latter have luxury articles for sale from Scandinavia. Scandinavian design as an antidote or contrast to the Delft blue perhaps? Among the real hand painted Delftware are many works of art, but those are far too expensive to take back as a souvenir.

Behind the New Church

 

Saturday afternoon I enjoyed just roaming around, exploring shops, canals and alleys which I hadn't seen before. Along some of the canals one finds imposing former merchant houses and warehouses. Nowadays the big houses are used for student housing or as offices, and hardly privately owned. The centre is dotted with cafes and restaurants, not just in the wide market square with its ancient Town Hall (where one of my brothers got married long ago) and its imposing New Church which houses the graves of the Royal family, the House of Orange. There are cafes in the old "Waag" the weighing house, along the canals, and in squares, sometimes on barges used as floating terraces, and in the square next to the Old Church with its tower slanting like the tower of Pisa. Both churches have beautiful, big and famous pipe organs and there are regular organ  recitals. I just missed a lunchtime recital in the New Church.

Bikes, stalls, and a canal

Delft was home to the famous painter Johannes Vermeer, whose grave can be found in the Old Church. Don't mix Delft up with the town pictured in the film "Girl with a Pearl Earring". The film was shot in Belgium, and not in Delft, as it was much easier to find a medieval town centre in what used to be the Southern Netherlands. In Belgium they have not meddled so much with their heritage as we have in the Netherlands where we seem to replace historic buildings by new ones – or by parking lots and ring roads.

A door of one of the bigger houses