Delft Netherlands

Today's trip found me taking a short train ride to Delft.  Delft is a small town North West of Rotterdam.  Elizabeth and already been here with a friend but I went to Delft to visit the WWII museum.  I was disappointed to find out the museum had been closed for about a year.  That didn't stop me from walking through the beautiful town and seeing both the Old Church and the New Church. Another thing Delft is famous for is Delftware, the blue and white tin glazed pottery.





The Old Church was the first stop, building started in 1246 with various additions added in subsequent years.  Nothing fancy, a plain (but large) church.













On the right side of this picture you can see the only windmill still in existence in Delft, the Roos Windmill.  It is an unusual stone mill built in 1679.





The New Church was a simple but pretty church with public access to the bell tower.  Three Hundred, Seventy Six steps later I was glad I did it.  The view was awesome!  The whole town laid out before you, very much worth the climb.

When I came down from the bell tower there was a small string group setting up for practice.  I walked around the church and got to hear them play, it was very nice sitting in the church listening to beautiful music, it was the perfect atmosphere to pray and to reflect.









This is what most of the stairway looked like,  It was somewhat narrow but not so much that it was scary, just narrow.  The problem was when you encountered somebody else going the opposite direction, it got very narrow then.











Another view from the bell tower, this was a large church and we were towering above it.  Although not visable in this picture there were a lot of modern buildings in the distance.








Both the Old and New Church ceilings were beautiful.  The wood tones made your eyes pop when you looked upward.















There was a Boules tournament going on when I was there. This is the view from the bell tower.  The center of the square was covered in sand and they were playing  Boules.  It was quite interesting, I had never watched the game being played before.  It was apparent that they were quite serious about the game and there were some very skilled players.

This is the City Hall building, the picture does not do it justice.




                     TJ in Holland