18th August
Katwijk to Delft

Another lovely day. Sunny blue skies, yet again. It's getting to be a habit - long may it last.

We had 30 km to do today, all of it downriver, and all of it suburban. There were minimal waits at the bridges and we made good time.

This was an unusual shaped lock - narrow at one end and WIDE at the other.

The visitors' harbour in Delft is not the most attractive, and we almost continued on past.  We decided to tie up for a short time, though, while we perused the charts to try and figure out an alternative.  A very friendly harbourmaster gave us a hand mooring, and he was so gushing about his town he talked us into staying. And guess what? We're going to stay two nights.

The only remaining city gate into Delft and a cutie it is, too.

The haven is in a biggish basin at the confluence of two canals and could be really nice if they invested a bit in extra docks and planted some trees. There is a huge railway project going on just beyond, and perhaps when it is finished they will do something about the haven.  They still charged 13 euros, though, and power is via a pay meter, 50cents a go. We'll have to start saving coins again.

We took a bike ride through the old city and the harbourmaster was right, it is charming. Lovely old buildings, squares, canals, leaning towers and huge churches with imressive spires. Plenty of streetside cafe's and lovely shops to browse. I can see I will spend some time here tomorrow.

And, of course, the one thing we all know about Delft is they have made pottery here for centuries, so we took a tour of the Royal Delft pottery works, the only one of the original factories still in operation.

A Royal Delft version of the 'Night Watch' with modern additions.

"Look!", I pointed to Skip. "A lovely coffee shop."
"You should'nt call it that." he said.
So, OK, the Royal Delft factory has a lovely tea shop.

TOURIST TRAP, TOURIST TRAP! They shoulda had a sign outside, but anyway. They did have a nice coffee shop in a lovely small courtyard garden and Skip snuck off and bought me a pretty christmas bell to hang on our tree :) - good boy Skip, good boy.