Our day together in Delft was fun. We had a stroll around the city, and ate at a place called the Spice House (we think) which had delicious food and the most abrupt service ever. We split a traditional Dutch dish of beef with vegetables in a sauce of red wine, and the flavors were fantastic. We nearly removed every drop of sauce with the accompanying brown bread. The waiter was impossible to flag down and seriously said less than 20 words the entire night. It was comical, as we wanted to order dessert, but he never returned.
Our hotel was next to the old church and near the new church, thankfully, because we forgot to set the alarm and were awoken just in the nick of time for breakfast by the loud carillon in the bell tower. We had a nice meal, complete with my favorite Dutch treat of chocolate sprinkles, and then headed to The Hague for a trip to the Mauritshuis Museum.
While trying to get to the museum, we walked around the Binnenhof and the Knight’s Hall, which were barricaded. Tons of television crews were around, as were a few photographers and lots of people. We joined the crowd for a bit and watched many well decorated military members get whisked away in private cars. There was plenty of security on hand, and we knew something was up, and figured that the Queen must be heading out, or someone else very important at least. After hanging around for a bit, we decided to go to the museum which was next door, and gave up on seeing Queen Beatrix. Indeed, she had been in the Binnenhof and was giving a promotion to someone in the Dutch military, hence all of the guys with tons of medals heading out. Interesting to see, at least for a little while.
The Mauritshuis Museum was nice, and we saw more Rembrandt works and other Dutch Masters. There were a number of amazing still life paintings of vases of flowers. I found it interesting that the artists created studies of flowers throughout the year, and then composited all of the flowers which bloom at different times into one giant vase of flowers.
We made a stop at the Royal Delft Pottery Factory which was interesting. I was familiar with the blue painted Dutch pottery from having seen it around for years, but there was more to it than we knew. I hadn’t expected them to make much other than plates and tableware, yet they had previously made a large amount of building pottery which was installed throughout the region and was beautiful. Also, they produced much of their finer product by hand still, and the painting was exquisite. After going on the self-guided tour and getting to walk around on the factory floor, we wound up in the gift shop which had the most expensive things made from clay I’ve ever seen! The prices were nuts, and while I did covet the beautiful vases and plates and jars, I didn’t have the hundreds of Euros it would take to own it. I satisfied myself with some photographs, and we headed to Brussels.