Delft, Den Haag and a visit to Marcia and Randy

From Rotterdam we drove north to Delft. Delft also is a beautiful town that fulfilled all our expectations of what the Netherlands would look like. There were waterways everywhere, beautiful old buildings, neat homes and apartments with lace curtains and painted shutters. It was beautiful. The weather helped too - it was sunny and warm!

We stopped in the Great Market Square for some poffertjes, cappicino and pannenkucken (served with very dark, molasses-tasting syrup). We happened to pick a restaurant where Bill and Hillary enjoyed poffertjes a few years ago!

The "anchor" of the city square is this enormous Dutch Reformed Church. Unfortunately we did not time it so that we could attend worship.

Hey Joseph! Eur-o-pean! Ha! Ha! Seriously, he is pretending here but these really are the urinals you see all over Holland - and they really do get used!

This is the (former) home of Delft's famous Johannes Vermeer. He is buried in the church (above). The church also contains the crypt of the House of Orange.

This is the "Old Church" built around 1200.

Although built as an abbey, this served as the Court of Prince William of Orange in the 16th century. If fact he was assassinated here in 1584.

After visiting Delft we continued driving to the coast to Den Haag. We didn't stop due to the time but here are a few pictures of the political/government buildings of the Hague.

From Den Haag we drove to Beek. Beek is located in a little finger of the Netherlands between Germany and Belgium. Jeff's cousin Marcia lives there. A stop in Beek to see Marcia and her husband, Randy, meant only about one extra hour on the road but essentially no more miles (the extra hour was due to staying in the Netherlands as long as possible on our way south rather than getting to the autobahn ASAP.)

The boys stayed busy with the frogs in their pond and the neighbor's goat.
We enjoyed wonderful cake and coffee with Marcia and Randy - cherry and (my favorite) on with a rice-pudding kind of topping - yum!

It was a perfect and relaxing break! Thank you so much Marcia and Randy!