Lovely Leiden & Lakes

On our walking tour of Leiden.
One of the many beautiful buildings in town.
The oldest building in Leiden, now an American Pilgrim Museum. After the pilgrims fled England, this is where they came to live, before sailing to America in the 1600’s.
I love the windows in this great old building.
From the 1500’s until 1961 this was the Holy Ghost Orphanage which housed 700 orphans. While the locals offered them shelter, they also worked them hard in an age long before labor laws. Children were also brought in from other countries to be “taken care of” and put to work in the cloth industry.
The entrance gate to the Holy Ghost Orphanage.
Look how this sign “candy coated” the place.
A budding Randy Rainbow, perhaps? “If we could all see the world through the eyes of a child, we would see the magic in everything.”
After touring town we biked out to the countryside and around the lakes of Leiden.
Pretty sure these fields of flowers are sold in cut flower bouquets. Beautiful to pedal by them.
We took a few ferries along the route. Fun!
Stopped for lunch at a cozy cafe and watched people on small boats working the locks. All self serve!
Talk about hitting the spot! Elderberry lemonade with mint and ICE!!!
Our bike bath went right through the farmer’s field – loved it!
The lakes of Leiden – magnificent!
Back into town after a 30 mile jaunt. Time for showers and dinner!
At the train station heading for the airport then on to Italy. We’ll meet the Tewksburys and you there!

Leiden ➡️ The Hague ➡️ Leiden

Took the train from Delft to Leiden and walked about a half mile to Het Vogelhuis B & B.
Jan met us at the door and showed us around.
Everything we needed.
Plus a kitchen.
Time for lunch and getting organized, again! This will be our home for the next 4 days.
The following day we took the train to Den Haag (The Hague). We haven’t seen buildings this big in over a month.
Destination: Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery.
Of course, we saw many paintings, starting with the Flemish masters. We were somewhat surprised when we saw The Goldfinch and no one was really paying much attention. When we thought about it though the reason we were interested was because we both read the novel by Donna Tartt. May not have gotten that much press here in the Netherlands. Beautiful just the same.
Remember when we were in Delft and went to Vermeer’s museum we saw none of his original art? This is probably one of his most well known paintings, yes? I have to say it was very impressive in “real life”.
Those lips and eyes! And, of course the pearl earring!
I read the novel The Girl with the Pearl Earring and I always thought, in the story, she was abused by Vemeer. I just had a bad feeling about it. Whenever I looked at that painting it made me feel a bit uncomfortable. UNTIL I read this! I guess the author was taking poetic license.
Vermeer’s “View of Delft” is also breath taking in person.
This is a painting by Rembrandt – unusual for him, I think.
Could this man be the next Flemish master!?!
Last look at The Hague as we head back to the train station and Leiden.

Cycling in and around Delft

Ok, it’s rainy and windy and here we are heading away from the cozy city. When we told people we were going biking in Holland they said “oh yes, nice and flat.” BUT does anyone ever talk about the wind!?! There’s a TON of wind to deal with. Honestly, do you know anyone as crazy as us???
Look at these cute ducks we spotted while biking. Anyone know what kind they are? (Found out -Egyptian goose with goslings!)
At a couple of different junctions we came to points where we had to take a self serve ferry. Pull the “boat” across the canal to our side by turning a wheel that drives a chain and drags the boat to us.
Get on the ferry and reverse the process. Now that we’ve crossed the water we are back on our way. Fun!
Quintessential Dutch!
Lunch time!
Fortified, we turn for home.
Lovely community garden or as our British friends say – allotment!
Look at the perfect hedgerows that border these gardens. Takes a community to do that!!!
Vermeer’s Milkmaiden
See the resemblance?
Part of Delft’s economic heritage is in printing. The bible hanging on the corner of this building recalls the first printed Dutch Bible, produced here in 1477.
Like me, do you think this an odd juxtaposition?
Awwwww…
There’s a lot to love about Delft 💕

Delft – Definitely Old

The Oude Kerk (Old Church) the oldest church in Delft (1245) – beautiful towers, right?
But looking at the main tower from this angle is a bit alarming. “Let’s not walk too close to that, ok?”
Delft is the birthplace of Johannes Vermeer (1632 – 1675). No original paintings of his remain here but this reproduction of his “View of Delft” (1660) is quite striking. Only 37 of his paintings exist and are in museums around the world.
Oostpoort (East Gate). This city gate is the only remaining gate of Delft and dates mid-1400s.
Nieuwe Jerk (new church) – competed in 1655.
This gate dates back to the 15th or 16th century.
One of the many beautiful canals in Delft. As a matter of fact – Delft means canal!

Tidbits of Holland

Poffertjes – delightful treats, drenched in butter and powdered sugar (icing sugar for our British friends). 😋
Making poffertjes.
This measuring pole indicates the flood water heights. The water was as high as that red marker approximately 50 years ago. The dykes held the water back, with very limited damage to the surrounding windmills.
And you thought you saw the end of flower pics(?) Nope! 😉
Too magnificent to walk by without a photo!
And too cute to ride by this moorhen and fluffy baby.
We spotted many of these baskets in the canals.
Turns out they are duck nesting baskets!
On the prowl…
Looking over the canal – “if I were a big cat, I’d go after those seagulls down there!”
I just cannot resist a grebe!!!

Have you been waiting for these?

Visited Kinderdijk today – where we saw 19 preserved windmills built in the 17th & 18th centuries.
It’s been on our bucket list.
It did not disappoint.
Great fun to ride the path and look at them.
When people join together to solve a problem they can come up with some amazing ideas!
Really fascinating to learn how the Dutch figured out how to get water out of their fields and back into the canals to prevent flooding. The U.S. really should be talking to the Netherlands now before we start having those same issues.
This one built in 1740 – lovely!

Doesburg, Netherlands

The ground floor of the B & B where we stayed, was our host’s clothing design studio.
Sunlit breakfast room.
The way to our living quarters for three nights. Holland has very steep and narrow stairs since they are often space deprived.
The oldest restaurant in the Netherlands, operating since 1448. Food was great, too!
Biked for two days while in Doesburg. Sometimes on dykes above the farms and sometimes on beautiful paths like this one.
At one point we had to ferry across the river Ijssel. About a five minute journey😉
This was an interesting sculpture. We first spotted it when crossing an arched bridge. So we were looking at it in the distance and from a bit above. It looked just like the figures were following each other. But when we walked up to it, they were next to one another. A very interesting optical illusion.
This bell blown from the church tower by the Nazis in 1945, near the end of WWII. The inscription (loosely translated) is “When the clock stopped the bird of freedom flew”.
Another night, we were in a restaurant where this was hanging. The waitress told us that it was a photograph and actual townspeople had posed for it. I love that “Jesus” is a woman.

Before we move on from Otterlo

Started our day with this breakfast at Velo – Droom B & B.
The national park that we visited also had a wonderful sculpture park. This piece floated in the lake and sometimes looked like a mushroom to me…
and sometimes a swan or a duck.
At first we thought this one had nothing holding it together but on closer inspection there was some “glue or cement” in critical places.
The “beech tree” in the foreground is actually a sculpture but we nearly walked past it!
Murph thinking golf … and me?
yoga, of course!!!
Time to ride some more – fietspad = bike path. And the Netherlands has a bunch of them😉
This, my friends, is a sand dune to them. Anyone of you who knows our Sleeping Bear Dunes would have to smile at these 6 foot sand piles!
The fields were just covered with this purple gorse. Very pretty!

Otterlo, Netherlands

Velo – Droom (Bicycle Dreams), our B & B for the next two nights.
We rented bikes and rode through the Hoge Veluwe National Park.
Where they have 1700 white bikes that are free and available for people to ride in the park. (We rented so we could keep them overnight and explore a larger area)
Within the park is the Kroller – Muller Museum. The highlight is it’s Vincent Van Gogh collection, the second largest in the world.

We saw many fine drawings and paintings but this was my favorite work of art!