Day 4 - To Delft and Back to Haarlem
We took the train
to Delft this morning, a forty minute ride.
All our Dutch friends had assured us we would love it and some suggested
we should stay there. I’m very glad we did not.
Arriving at the
Delft station at ten in the morning, we took a taxi and started chatting with
the driver, a young woman who had been a KLM flight attendant for some years.
We told her we wanted to see the Royal Delft China factory, and the Vermeer
Museum. And of course the center of the old town with its “New” church dating
from the 1200’s and its equally old town hall.
She told us there
were no Vermeer’s in the “Vermeer Museum”. Just films and clips of his life. A
good thing to know. His paintings, I gather, are all in the Rijksmuseum in
Amsterdam. We will see them there later this month.
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| Delft China Factory |
The Delft factory
was a delight. Informative and beautiful. So glad we went. We spent close to
two hours there, part of which was in their garden tea room, having lunch. I
had had some notion of buying some china from the factory. A notion that flew
out the window when I looked at the prices.
The same driver
(by arrangement) met us and took us into the old town center. We looked at the
church first, the anchor of the whole square as in most Renaissance towns.
Church at one end of the square, Town Hall at the other. And in between, shops and restaurants. After
the beauty of the one in Haarlem it was a disappointment. “Old” and
“interesting” are not always the same thing.
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| Delft Market Square |
We walked around
the town square. It was completely surrounded by tawdry tourist goods shops.
Not a single inviting outdoor restaurant. After the vibrant outdoor living room
of a town square we witnessed in Haarlem it was very disappointing.
I would sum up Delft
as a tourist town, by merchants and for tourists. My advice is to give it a
miss. Spend
the extra day in Haarlem, where the town square is full of the
local citizenry eating and drinking and going to concerts and such other
entertainments as might be happening. In two days in Haarlem we went to three
concerts in the town square. Two in the
Kirk. They were of a very high quality. On the day we arrived there was a huge
rock concert going on in the square with an enthusiastic young Dutch audience,
and enough police presence to be reassuring. It lasted for two hours, then
broke up peacefully, and that same evening we went to a superb Renaissance
Music performance on original instruments in the Kirk. They say “kirk” here
because they’re Protestants, but think Cathedral. That’s what it looks like.
 |
| Haarlem Town Square |
We walked the
rather long walk from the Delft town Square to the train station and were just
in time for the 3:45 back to Haarlem where we went to dinner on the Square and
on to a wonderful organ recital.
Somewhere along
the way I fell and cracked my right knee. Yes, the bad one. It took quite a bit
of ice and painkiller for me to get to sleep last night, but it’s better today.
I should mention,
the streets and sidewalks in Haarlem are all made of brick. As are the houses
and even the churches. Most are a faded red, but in several places we’ve seen
the Statia yellow brick. It’s often used in entrances – just as it is at French
Leave.
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Blair McDowell