Delft and Den Haag

This past Saturday, a group of us went on a day trip to Delft and Den Haag. It was so fun to go out and see a different part of this country!

In Delft, we visited two museums, as well as some ancient churches. It was great to learn about a city that has such a rich history! All I knew about it was the fact that Delftware comes from there. The first place we went was the town center. The town hall faces the "Nieuw Kerk", or New Church, which is actually quite old as it was built between 1383 and 1510. Inside the church is the mausoleum for William of Orange, the famous revolutionary of the Netherlands. We thought about going inside or going up the tower, but both were 3 euros, and we're all poor. The tower would have been worth it, but it was terrifically foggy, so we wouldn't have been able to see anything anyway.

Instead, we wandered around for a bit, finally finding the "Oude Kerk"; you guessed it, the Old Church. The entrance to this building was also expensive, but I took some pictures of it at least.

As we were coming up to the Oude Kerk, we spotted some signs for a museum, and museum cards in hand, we went in. (for free...I love those museum cards!) The museum was all about William of Orange. It turns out that he was assassinated in that very building! I took pictures of the bullet holes themselves. There were tons of paintings and as well as a great look at the history of the city itself.

A few interesting facts...dissection of human bodies was a key to the discovery of things like blood cells. People would gather around as one guy literally dissected a body. There were some rather gross paintings, with like 15 well-dressed men all gathered around this torn open body. On a different note, I was interested to learn about the Golden Age of the Netherlands too. This Golden Age was in the 17th century, when the Dutch East India Company (?VOC I think?) was at its zenith. It was during this time that people in Delft started making Delftware.

After this museum, we discovered that there was a second museum all about the ARMY! I wasn't going crazy about it, but I was with some guys, so they naturally wanted to see it. We wandered our way there with the help of a guidebook and plentiful signs. The museum was actually really cool; I was slightly shocked. Once I got past the fact that everything was designed for killing, it was interesting to see how weapons and armies have changed. The museum started with the Roman time and made its way into the present from there, displaying all sorts of guns and spears and tanks along the way. My favorite part of the whole museum was an epic diorama depicting a battle between the Romans and some barbarians. Each figure was about an inch tall, and the detail was incredible.

With the army museum behind us, we went back to the town center for the most important part of the day: buying Delftware. I purchased an authentic teacup, which is wrapped heavily in bubble wrap awaited the flight home. It's pretty sweet.

Delft done, we were off to Den Haag. We didn't really know what we were going to do in Den Haag, but time was running short. Once we got there, we found the Binnenhof,the seat of the government of the Netherlands. We took some pictures, but we were rushing to try to get to the Mauritshuis Museum before it closed. This museum houses the famous painting "Girl with a Pearl Earring". We found the museum (it's right next to the Binnenhof), but it cost 3 euros with a museum card. Since there were only 15 min. left before it closed, we decided it would have to wait for another day. Tired and hungry, we walked back to the train station, and caught the train back to Amsterdam. It was a great day!