Day tripping

So the results of the poll are in - by a small margin, "get off your lazy backsides" and head to both Gouda and Delft was the narrow winner... However, (and this is a learning experience in using polls), by the time the poll closed, we only had one full day left in Rotterdam!! Bad planning on my part - true, but consistent with the go-with-the-flow theme of this trip... Anyway, I make the rules here, so there!

Taken together, the poll results overwhelmingly voted for at least one day trip, sooo... we spent our last day in Rotterdam heading out of town to...





Delft!! See what i did there - almost gotcha! Turns out Delft had plenty of Gouda for sale, so in some (very) small way, we got to experience a bit of Delft and a bit of Gouda!

Turns out Delft is only a 12 minute train trip from Rotterdam Central station - so we walked for 45 minutes to the Central Station and then hopped on a train to Delft for a couple of hours of wandering aimlessly. I was hoping for a cute little, traditional Dutch town to meander through - and Delft delivered. Rotterdam was all but destroyed in WWII so there's not much of that Dutch village feel there. But Deflt had it in spades - houses on the main canal built in 1505, Johan Vermeer's house, ancient bridges and cobblestones... see for yourself:


















There was an Old Church and a New Church (both really old) and an impressive looking City Hall. It was also oddly deserted.... the main shopping strip had a reasonable crowd, but there rest of the canals/ streets in the middle of town were completely empty - which was a bit weird. It was as if there is some secret rule that no-one may visit Delft on a Wednesday... but no-one told us! Still it was handy for taking photos. It actually reminded me of Utrecht, where I spent a few months studying years ago.

We are now in Hamburg to attend Phil's cousin's wedding and 50th birthday party - which is tonight! I'll let you know how a German wedding goes...


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad