The Netherlands Page Three

The wedding was at the Landhuis de Oliphant, a manor house in the suburbs of Rotterdam and one of the oldest surviving buildings within the city boundaries.

The next day we travelled by train the short journey to the typically Dutch city of Delft – famous for its blue and white pottery amongst other things.

Delft train station is, like many, on the outskirts of town so we walked through the area known as Oude Delft (Old Delft) passing the distant tower of the Oude Kerk before turning into the “new” town centre – new being a fairly inaccurate word for largely 15^th-17^th Century buildings.

Confirmation of our being in the Netherlands came with the inevitable discovery of (and purchase from) a cheese shop … the first of several we saw in the City.

Today was Market Day in Delft and so the streets were thronged with people – there was also an antiques market on which we had influenced our decision to come to this particular city.

Rounding the corner from the Market – which incidentally was not on the Market Square – you come across a massive blue glass heart (known, not very imaginatively as De Blauw Haart), a quite startling piece of modern street art, presumably referring to the blue pottery that is the heart of Delft.

Then you turn the corner and you are onto the massive oblong space of the Market Square. At one end the rocket-like bulk of the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church) thrusts into the sky dramatically. It is actually the Netherlands’ second tallest church – after the Dom in Utrecht.

At the other end of the Market Square is the City Hall of Delft, a typically Dutch civic building – all gables and shutters. This was built after a fire burned down the old City Hall in 1618 by the same architect who built the Nieuwe Kerk.

On the two sides of the Market Square are a series of shops and restaurants. A large number of these – in fact the majority of them – specialised in Delft pottery, that distinctively Dutch blue and white pottery so famous here. We didn’t have time to visit the Delft Factories that are open to the public, so we had to make our pottery purchases from these shops.

Then after lunch, we turned around into the maze of canal lined alleys on the other side of the Market Square which is where the antiques market was. The market was extensive, but also quite pricey and we ended up buying only a few items. It was, though, our first foray into foreign antiques buying. As we went around the antiques market the weather began to close in and as we headed back towards the train the sky opened up and our first Dutch rain (a constant visitor when in the Netherlands) came down.

By the time we reached Rotterdam the weather had improved so we decided to take the water taxi downriver to Dordrecht, which Andrew had heard was another nice town.

The trip down was pleasant enough – not quite a cruise, but relaxing, and arriving at Dordrecht things looked good. A parade of strange colourful sheep statues greeted us, staring down from a wall and giving the impression that this would be another town like Delft.

However, as we climbed up towards the town centre things began to look a little less bright. Everything seemed to be boarded up tight and there was no one around. The streets were not very clean and it began to feel a little uninviting. Undeterred we pushed on to try to find the town centre, but nothing seemed to be showing itself. Then the rain which had caught us at Delft found us again, and this time really made its presence known. With reluctance we turned around and headed back down to the river never having found any signs of life in Dordrecht at all, nor anything that had any real resemblance to a town centre.

Perhaps we had not done Dordrecht full justice due to the weather, the lateness of the hour and (maybe) a degree of tiredness creeping in, but it had not inspired us in the way that Delft had. We were quite pleased when the boat got back to Rotterdam – a City we know quite well now.

As if to emphasise this, the sun emerged once more and beamed down as evening began to arrive, giving Andrew the opportunity to take some very impressive and striking photos of the Erasmus Bridge caught in the dying light.

The next morning we only had a little time in Rotterdam, so we found our way back to the Market in the City Centre, had a nice place of Pofferjes and then hung around the area where the Erasmus Bridge crosses the river for the last bit of time. Our hotel was also down here, brilliantly situated at the end of a tram line, and so it was easy for us to use up some time looking at strange modern street sculptures and dramatic modern architecture.

We even found time to take the traditional “silly foreigners in oversized clogs” photo!

Then we were back on the train heading for the Channel Tunnel. A brief, but as ever, enjoyable visit to the Netherlands.

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