Delft, Holland

This is a wrap up of our Spring Break trip to The Netherlands. If you’ve missed the other posts, you can see them here:

Find out why we didn’t go to Germany
Read about my adventure with Herring
See some “Dam” pictures
Look at more bicycles
Come with me to the Anne Frank and Van Gogh museums
Visit Amsterdam’s Red Light District
See what it looks like to ride the train from Den Hag to Haarlem
Enjoy beautiful Haarlem

Delft, Holland
It’s hard to think of anything but pottery when you hear the word “Delft”. Fortunately that is pretty much all we went there to see because any desire for other sightseeing was pretty much snuffed out by a steady rain.

Some interesting things about Delft:

• Painter Johannes Vemeer was from here. Think “Girl with a Pearl Earring“.
• A lot of this medieval town was flattened after a huge explosion at the national arsenal in the mid 1600s.
• There are a lot of cute shops.
• Delftware is really expensive.
• Oh, and Delft is about 20 minutes from The Hague by tram.

Here’s De Delftse Pauw. Apparently, this company and it’s competitor (Who is it, you ask? I don’t know) are the only two companies making official “Delfware“. Interestingly, I just noticed that the Volvo parked in front of this building looks exactly like our car. It’s not, though. Ours was in England at the time. And not as clean.

You can take a tour of this “factory”, which is really an amazingly clean studio housed in this building. They do it all here from mixing the clay to the final firing. Actually, the guide told us that some of the painting is done by local artists at their homes and the final firing is done at the factory. You can read more about how pottery is made, if you’re interested.

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Apparently De Delftse Pauw’s clay is a mixture of English and German clays “and the rest is a secret”. Our guide talked us through their process, which you can read about here if you are so inclined.

The artists paint the biscuit ware in a sunny little area. They do not wear smocks or yucky clothes (I’m a messy artist and am amazed when others aren’t). Instead, they are dressed nicely, without a drop of paint on them. What skill! What steady hands.
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Speaking of steady hands, here is an artist penciling in his image onto biscuit ware. He will paint in the black later. Don’t you love their water pots? I use an old spaghetti sauce jar, which isn’t as charming.

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See that paint on this large platter. It’s black, right?

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After the artist paints the platter, the piece is glazed. During the firing, there is a chemical reaction and the black paint turns blue. This is a finished example of the platter the fellow in the previous photo was working on. Such detail! Needless to say, this piece is very expensive.

Every piece made in this factory is made by hand so each one is different. Roxi and I bought two tiny little dishes, maybe 2.5″ in diameter. Yes, you can go to the tourist shops and buy souvenir pieces made elsewhere, but my pottery-loving daughter wanted a piece of the real deal. Me too!

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Here’s the view across the river from the pottery.
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And Delft’s charming bridges across the canals. (and more bicycles!).

. We’re headed toward the Markt, or the town square…

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…to see the very tall Nieuwe Kerk. It was built between 1383 and 1510, heavily restored in 1536 after a fire and again in 1654 after the big explosion. The 328-ft tower was added in the late 1800s. William I of Orange (also known as William the Silent) is buried here. I’d like to go back and look inside the church.

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Here’s the giant wooden shoe located in the town square in front of a souvenir shop (a pretty good one, by the way). It’s big enough for an adult to sit in. Maybe it belonged to Wynken, Blynken and Nod?

Related posts

• The Hague, The Netherlands (from our trip in July) (17)
• Den Haag to Haarlem, The Netherlands (13)
• Scheveningen on the North Sea (4)
• Museums of The Hague (6)
• I want to ride my bicycle (I want to ride it where I like) (5)