Saturday, August 28th – cloudy, windy, and cool outside: We stayed in one of the Schiphol Airport business hotels Friday night so that we wouldn’t have to deal with Amsterdam bike traffic and we could leave the area easily with a rental car in the morning.
We had reserved a rental car over the Internet last night and the little silver Honda Jazz was waiting for us when we got there.
We loaded up the car and found the highway south to the lovely city of Leiden. It was only about 30 minutes from the Amsterdam Airport. Leiden is a vibrant college town full of young people on bicycles and Leiden University is the oldest university in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, leader of the Dutch Revolt.
Typical of Dutch cities, many of the streets in Leiden are lovely canals with walking and bike lanes along the canal. We found a parking lot near the “centrum” of town, parked the car, and walked around.
The narrow streets were filled with market stalls so we surmised that it was Saturday Market Day, like in France.
The sun peeked out from behind clouds and the temperature felt warmer.
We kept seeing shops and stalls selling Turkish food and spices. I thought I must be dreaming. There seems to be a population of Turkish people in Holland.
Jeff and I have been looking to replace our Swiss travel rain jackets and we were happy to see that one of the stalls had inexpensive fold-up rain jackets. Jeff bought a gray/black one and I bought an oversized bright red one. It matches my red umbrella! We also bought some snacks for lunch. We walked around for a while and had fun seeing the crowds of people and the goods for sale.
We left Leiden at about 2:30 to go to the famous city of Delft, Holland. We were armed with one of Jeff’s 15 year old Michelin maps of Holland, no Dutch vocabulary, and my infallible sense of direction! How could we go wrong? We got a little lost leaving Leiden but finally found the A-4 highway to Delft.
We finally found Delft and after unsuccessfully following “Centrum” signs, which led drivers around the periphery of the city. Then we found a parking garage near the center of town so we were able to get rid of the car. This was one of those unbelievable spotlessly clean modern garages that are well lighted and safe. We felt good about leaving the car and our luggage in the garage and went out to explore the famous city of Delft tiles and Delft porcelain.
Delft is another lovely Dutch town with beautiful canals and lovely old brick buildings. In the center marketplace just outside the huge “New” church, was another Saturday Market. This one had antiques and collectibles.
After walking around for a while we thought we should find a hotel for the night. We happened upon a “tourist office” and inquired about hotels. The woman said she would call the hotels for us to see if they had rooms available.
The first one we chose was the Hotel Johannes Vermeer. It had been an old cigar factory and was converted to a hotel in 2000. It was on one of the smaller canals, had free WiFi, and sounded good in the brochure. The woman called and they had a double room for 89 Euros per night.
We walked to the hotel and the young man gave us the keys to two of the rooms and told us to choose whichever room we liked best. The first was on the fourth floor at the top of two twisting circular staircases and looked like a cozy garret. The second room was much larger with a seating area, a very large bathroom with a skylight and on the third floor – only one circular staircase. We chose the second room. Both rooms were the same price!
We were hungry and went out to find a restaurant for dinner. There seemed to be more ethnic restaurants in Delft than at home. We found Chinese, Indian, Spanish Tapas, Indonesian, Italian, Mexican, French, and Turkish restaurants.
Then Jeff spotted the Spijshuis De Dis – Dutch Culinary Art Restaurant across the Beetenmarkt Park. The restaurant was warm and cozy with attractive decorations and the people were very friendly.
I had a wonderful vegetarian casserole with eggplant, zucchini, nuts, raisins, and onion. It was delicious! Jeff had beef stew with roasted potatoes. It was a relaxing and pleasant dinner.
As we left the restaurant, it began to rain again. Unfortunately, the small quaint historic hotel is on a no-cars narrow canal, so we had to walk to the garage to get our over-night bags from the car to take to the Johannes Vermeer Hotel. The rain got heavier as we walked quickly through the quiet streets of Delft. It continued to rain on the way back to the hotel. We were both wearing our rain jackets from the morning market. We accomplished our goal, climbed up three flights of stairs, and were in for the evening. It had been a good day…..