Delft; Saturday, 05 August, 2023

Originally the weather forecast for Friday had been pretty bad but turned out very pleasant with the day staying dry, but it was clear pretty early on that Saturday’s weather wasn’t going to be quite so pleasant, but the morning did at least look dry.

After having breakfast, I headed back over into town to have a wander and eventually ended up at the Nieuwe Kerk or New Church, new in name only to distinguish its 14th century construction from the slightly older 13th century Oude Kerk or Old Church. Both buildings are representative of the importance that the city of Delft once had.

The New Church, since the 1584 burial of William of Orange, has acted as the final resting place of the Dutch Royal Family with a grand crypt below the main church floor being opened up for the state and family funerals, but not accessible at any other times.

Having looked round the New Church it was a short five-minute walk across to the Old Church to have a look around that – the €8 ticket covering both churches which made the price a little less steep.

The Old Church is distinguishable from a distance by its tower that has a very distinct lean, which started to develop whilst building work was underway and therefore in places the design of towers and ornaments were edited to try and visually hide some of the wonkiness.

If the New Church is the resting place of Royalty the old church is the final resting place of Delfts important sons and daughters, including several naval heroes, noblewoman and poets as well as Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, who is credited for inventing the sciences of microscopy though the very powerful lenses he created, and consequently likely being the first human to see microbes through them, also pioneering microbiology. However, the most famous person buried in the church is the local artist Johannes Vermeer, most famous perhaps for his painting of Girl with a Pearl Earring.

As I stepped out of the church, I felt the first spits of rain and decided, given it was already approaching 1, now would be a good time to head under cover for some lunch, and just a couple of minutes after being seated well under cover the skies opened for the first of several sharp showers that accompanied my lunch.

Whilst having lunch a quick look at the weather apps showed that Delft was likely to have poor weather for most of the afternoon, but weirdly over by the coast at Scheveningen it looked like it was going to stay dry – so after lunch I made my way over to the tram stop near the station, dodging one more short sharp shower, and picked up the tram all the way out to the coast. Passing through Den Haag city centre I started to lose a little faith in the weather forecast as it was particularly wet here, but sure enough as the tram pulled into the centre of Scheveningen the skies were at least dry with the odd patch of blue.

I had a bit of a wander along the beach, and then a stroll along the prom, before stopping off for a drink in one of the beach side bars to while away the rest of the afternoon before it was time to head back to the tram stop and catch a tram back into Delft for dinner, a brief wander through the now thankfully dry streets and then back to the hotel to bed.