Tuesday 14 July

You can not come to the Netherlands without visiting Delft or at least buying a piece of blue and white Delft porcelain! So we did! And of course the bags our purchases were placed in have blue and white tiled patterns all over.

We headed for Delft first, but sometimes travel in the Netherlands is not that straight forward. In the land of cancals you sometimes have to give way to boats. Some canal bridges will open to allow larger ships to pass, and all the cars just have to wait...

Canal bridge opening for shipping

The Royal Delft factory produces hand painted Blue Delft porcelain with the name de Porceleyne Fles. We all had a good look through the shop, and bought some souvenirs.

Sign at the entrance to the Royal Delft shop, Delft

Delft Blauwe (blue Delft) in the Royal Delft shop, Delft

Next stop, the bead shop Lazuli near the centre of Delft. Karen, Emma, Jennifer and Rosemary headed for the shop while Piet, Anita, Shirley and Chris walked around the picturesque city centre. It really is a tourist city and the old buildings are maintained in the original condition.

Old dutch ice skates for sale, Delft

Canal boat, Delft

We then had some patat/hot fries with fritesaus/mayonnaise while we strolled back to the car, then drove to Madurodam.

Madurodam is where you can see a lot of the Netherlands in one place, because everything is miniature. All the miniatures are detailed replicas of actual buildings and places. We had a couple of hours here and then looked in the souvenir shop.

Model of Gouda Stadhuis (town hall), Madurodam

Model of Amsterdam houses on the canal, Madurodam

After dropping our souvenirs at home and picking up somethings Piet dropped us over at Hans and Henriette's house for dinner and we have a pleasant evening sitting outside while the girls watched TV and had a turn on a laptop. There were three on the dining table at one stage! Chris helped Hans test several of his whiskeys.

We met their turtle who loves to eat snails, and four of their six cats. Ruben kindly picked us up and dropped us home.