delft

Today Jason spent the day with the kids so Carrie and I could take some time to show me around the town of Delft. This little nook in the Netherlands is known for it's pretty blue "delftware" pottery. We spent a little bit of time perusing a couple of shops before cruising into the city square and looking in at the churches there.


The creepy thing about the cathedrals are the bodies that are entombed underfoot. The grave stone are part of the floor of the building. Some people carefully walk around each labeled stone block, but after awhile, there's no point.


While many churches in Cathedrals in Europe are ornate places of Catholic worship, the Protestant Dutch were much less ostentatious when decorating their churches. The building appear impressive on the outside, but seem bare in comparison to the Cathedrals in Rome. I remember learning about that in school, too, and being a bit disappointed that my ancestors in Holland did not have quite the decorating tendencies that their fellow Europeans embraced within the church; although, I'm sure that has less to do with their talents as decorators than their historical place through Reformation Iconoclism. The stained glass was lovely to look at, though.


After a climb up the tower of Nieuwe Kerk (new church) and visiting Oude Kerk (old church), we also visited the Het Prinsenhof Museum where William of Orange maintained residence and was assassinated. The bullet holes can still be seen in the wall (photo above).

We really had a lovely day and finished it off with sticky buns in the car on the way back home.