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| Cheers! |
Friday, April 22, 2022
Our trip with Captain Henk on the sloop has taken us past windmills, bridges, distilleries, barges, birds and beautiful scenery. We spent the morning motoring to the city of Delft. We had about an hour to sight-see before we needed to return to the boat for lunch and our trip back to Schiedam.
We passed some interesting sights as we approached Delft. And we had a view of the city, reminiscent of Vermeer's famous View of Delft from the 17th century.
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| Military gate at the approach to Delft |
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| Vermeer's famous View of Delft from the 1600's |
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| Our own View of Delft from our sloop |
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| Walking through Delft |
As we walked around Delft, we stopped at a bridge with a view of the Oude Kerk (Old Church), established as a Protestant church in 1246. It's famous for its leaning bell tower, which is 2 meters off vertical.
Per Wiki, "The tower with its central spire and four corner turrets was added between 1325-50. During its construction the foundations were not strong enough to support the building, and the church began to lean. As work continued, the builders tried to compensate for its lean on each layer added to the tower, but to this day only the four turrets at the top are truly vertical."
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| The Oude Kerk, with its leaning bell tower, 2 meters off vertical |
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| Look close; you can see the four turrets have been adjusted to try to adapt to the leaning angle |
Michael and I stopped to visit the Museum Paul Tetar van Elven, at Koornmarkt 67. This is a well preserved house of an artist painter, Tetar van Elven. Originally built after the great Delft city fire in 1536, Tetar van Elven lived in the house from 1864-94.
Married twice, he was childless and decided that his house should become a museum. All the unique contents of the house of a bourgeoise artist from the 19th century have been preserved. It was interesting to tour, with all the original furnishings and many of his paintings and drawings.
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| The house at Koornmarkt 67 is a musem; a preserved house of a 19th century artist |
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| Drawing room of Tetar van Elven's house |
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| Teter van Elven's art studio - upstairs in front of large window with perfect natural lighting |
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| Art supplies |
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| Paul Tetar van Elven (1823-96) - better known for his house than his art |
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| Time to return to our sloop parked on the canalway |
Henk and Len had arranged for a wonderful lunch on the boat, awaiting our return from our sight-seeing excursion. We had chilled Prosecco, open faced sandwiches and bitterballen - now my second chance to try this famous Dutch food. I'm becoming a fan!
After lunch, we retraced our way back down the canal to Schiedam, enjoying the reverse opening and closing of the Schiedam bridges on the way back to the Aurora.
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| Captain Henk does the pouring honors to start our lunch off with cheer |
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| Bitterballen, served traditionally with a slice of bread, mustard, lettuce and tomato |
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| Cheers and thanks to Captain Henk for a wonderful time plying the waterways on his sloop. |
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