Last Pre-Baby Trip Day 5 (24 April, 2007)

^ Sea of Bicycles - Centraal Station - Den Haag ^

We woke up at 6:30 - unassisted - and loaded up the car to head off on our big day of driving and whatnot. We left the hotel at 7:30 without having to battle the Chinese for decent breakfast selections, which was quite nice - instead we did battle with the entire population of Den Haag for primo parking spots in the city.

We left the car at 8:30 or so and walked to a bakery we had scouted the day before and did some window shopping. We thought about taking a train over to Delft to save any potential parking headaches we might find there so we headed over to the station to check schedules.

We decided not to take the train, but it was a useful time waster until the Mauritshuis museum opened at 10:00.

The Mauritshuis (pronounced Mao-reets-house) is a 2-story, 18-room collection of paintings that takes less than an hour to get through, but it has quite a collection of famous paintings. Of the 36 known works by Vermeer, 3 are here ('Girl with a Pearl Earring', 'View of Delft' and 'Diana and Her Companions'). Also here are some famous Rembrandts - 'The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp' and a famous self portrait (as an old man). Some nice Van Dycks as well.

^ The Old Church - Delft ^

After the museum, we headed out to Delft and got there in no time at all as it's only 5 km down the road.

We parked within a couple hundred yards of the main downtown square and found a delicious street-vendor/fish market that was selling fish parts (suitably fried of course) and we took them and ate them on the square where Vermeer was born.

Vermeer's birth house is now a tacky porcelain vendor (delftware made in China) and it's one street in front of the reputed inspiration for Vermeer's 'The Little Street' painting.

We strolled around the quiet little streets of Delft and found a grocer that sold delcious fresh fruit and another that was an actual supermarket type of store where we loaded up on Stroopwaffelen (for a friend) and other snack-type foods for later in the day.

Next up: Kinderdijk.

^ Windmills at Kinderdijk ^

We piled back in the car after a couple of hours in Delft and started on the road to Köln by way of Kinderdijk - a UNESCO World Heritage site that contains 19 working windmills that were all built between 1738 and 1740 in order to help abate flooding. They're all built with water lifting augers and they're inhabited and kept functional in the event they're ever needed again. The last major flood of the area was in 1953...that flood was the reason the Delta Works project was begun - and, interestingly, the Delta Works crew studied the levee system of New Orleans when in the design phases.

After Kinderdijk we wobbled on down the road back to the highway and got going back to Köln.

We arrived in Köln at about 8:00 and the drive in was considerably less trouble than we had anticipated. We parked at the Hohe Strasse parking garage and had to walk approximately 300 yards to our hotel through the pedestrian zone. A little scary at first, but it was quite tame except for the 'novelty' store a few paces up the the street from the hotel.

The Callas am Dom hotel is upstairs from a store that sells Haagen Dazs ice cream and was quite nice, even without air conditioning.

The first night we strolled around and ended up sitting down rather late (9:00) for dinner at Früh - the most famous biergarten in Köln where they keep bringing you .2 liter beers until you tell them to stop (or fall off your chair).

Long day, but a good day.

^ Reflected Windmill ^